
Rev. E. A. CRANSTON. 



HOLY IN CHRIST. 



ghe Works of §U». ^torero fpnrraa. 

ABIDE IN CHRIST. Thoughts on the Blessed Life of 
Fellowship with the Son of God. i6mo, cloth, $1.00. 

LIKE CHRIST. Thoughts on the Blessed Life of Con- 
formity to the Son of God. A sequel to "Abide in 
Christ." 16010, cloth, $1.00. 

WITH CHRIST in the School of Prayer. Thoughts on 
our Training for the Ministry of Intercession. i6mo, 
cloth, $1.00. 

THE CHILDREN FOR CHRIST. Thoughts for Chris- 
tian Parents on the Consecration of the Home Life. 
i6mo, cloth, $1.25. 

HOLY IN CHRIST. Thoughts on the Calling of God's 
Children to be Holy as He is Holy. i6mo, cloth, $1.00. 



2in00n ED. £. Banbolpl) & Compang, 

38 West Twenty-third St. , New York, 



HOLY IN CHEIST: 



^bougbts on tfoe Calling of (Bob's Cbilbren 
to be Dolg as ft>e is fjoly. 



Bf 



REV. ANDREW MURRAY, 

AUTHOit OF ' AlilUE IS CHRIST, ' LIKE CHRIST,' ETC, 



' I am holy : 
ye shall be holy. 



NEW YORK: 
A. D. F. RANDOLPH & CO., 

38 WEST TWENTY-THIRD STREET. 



7 










PREFACE. 



There is not in Scripture a word more distinctly 
Divine in its origin and meaning than the word 
holy. There is not a word that leads us higher 
into the mystery of Deity, nor deeper into the 
privilege and the blessedness of God's children. 
And yet it is a word that many a Christian has 
never studied or understood. 

There are not a few who can praise God that 
during the past twenty years the watchword Be 
Holy has been taken up in many a church and 
Christian circle with greater earnestness than 
before. In books and magazines, in conventions 
and conferences, in the testimonies and the lives 
of believers, we have abundant tokens that what is 
called the Holiness-movement is a reality. 

And yet how much is still wanting ! What 
multitudes of believing Christians there are who 
have none but the very vaguest thoughts of what 
holiness is ! And of those who are seeking after it, 

V 



VI PREFACE, 

how many who have hardly learnt what it is to 
come to God's Word and to God Himself for the 
teaching that can alone reveal this part of the 
mystery of Christ and of God ! To many, holiness 
has simply been a general expression for the 
Christian life in its more earnest form, without 
much thought of what the term really means. 

In writing this little book, my object has been to 
discover in what sense God uses the word, that so 
it may mean to us what it means to Him. I have 
sought to trace the word through the most import- 
ant passages of Holy Scripture where it occurs, 
there to learn what God's holiness is, what ours is 
to be, and what the way by which we attain it. I 
have been specially anxious to point out how many 
and various the elements are that go to make up 
true holiness as the Divine expression of the 
Christian life in all its fulness and perfection. I 
have also striven continually to keep in mind the 
wonderful unity and simplicity there is in it, as 
centred in the person of Jesus. As I proceeded 
in my work, I felt ever more deeply how high the 
task was I had undertaken in offering to guide 
others even into the outer courts of the Holy Place 
of the Most High. And yet the very difficulty of 
the task convinced me of how needful it was. 

I fear there are some to whom the book may 



PREFACE. Vll 

be a disappointment. They have heard that the 
entrance to the life of holiness is often but a 
step. They have heard of or seen believers who 
could tell of the blessed change that has come over 
their lives since they found the wonderful secret of 
holiness by faith. And "ow they are seeking for 
this secret. They cannot understand that the 
secret comes to those who seek it not, but only seek 
Jesus. They might fain have a book in which all 
they need to know of Holiness and the way to it is 
gathered into a few simple lessons, easy to learn, to 
remember, and to practise. This they will not find. 
There is such a thing as a Pentecost still to the 
disciples of Jesus ; but it comes to him who has 
forsaken all to follow Jesus only, and in following 
fully has allowed the Master to reprove and instruct 
him. There are often very blessed revelations of 
Christ as a Saviour from sin both in the secret 
chamber and in the meetings of the saints ; but 
these are given to those for whom they have been 
prepared, and who have been prepared to receive. 
Let all learn to trust in Jesus, and rejoice in Him, 
even though their experience be not what they 
would wish. He will make us holy. But whether 
we have entered the blessed life of faith in Jesus 
as our sanctification, or are still longing for it from 
afar, we all need one thing, the simple, believing, 



VU1 PHEFACE. 

and obedient acceptance of each word that our God 
has spoken. It has been my earnest desire that I 
might be a helper of the faith of my brethren in 
seeking to trace with them the wondrous revelation 
of God's Holiness through the ages as recorded in 
His blessed Word. It has been my continual 
prayer that God might use what is written to 
increase in His children the conviction that we 
must be holy, the knowledge of how we are to be 
holy, the joy that we may be holy, the faith that 
we can be holy. And may He stir us all to cry 
day and night to Him for a visitation of the Spirit 
and the Power of Holiness upon all His people, 
that the name of Christian and of saint may be 
synonymous, and every believer be a vessel made 
holy and meet for the Master's use. 

A.M. 

Wellington, IQth November 1887# 



CONTENTS. 



DAT 

1. God's Call to Holiness— 1 Pet. i. 15, 16, 

2. God's Provision for Holiness — 1 Cor. i. 2, 

3. Holiness and Creation — Gen. ii. 3, 

4. Holiness and Revelation — Ex. iii. 4-6, 

5. Holiness and Redemption — Ex. xiii. 2, 

6. Holiness and Glory — Ex. xv. 11-17, . 

7. Holiness and Obedience — Ex. xix. 5, 6, 

8. Holiness and Indwelling — Ex. xxv. 8, 

9. Holiness and Mediation — Ex. xxviii. 36-38, 

10. Holiness and Separation — Lev. xx. 24, 26, 

11. The Holy One of Israel — Lev. xi. 45, 

12. The Thrice Holy One— Isa. vi. 1-3, 

13. Holiness and Humility — Isa. lvii. 15, 

14. The Holy One of God— John vi. 69, 

15. The Holy Spirit— John vii. 39, 

16. Holiness and Truth — John xvii. 17, 

17. Holiness and Crucifixion — John xvii. 19, 

18. Holiness and Faith — Acts xxvi. 18, 

19. Holiness and Resurrection — Rom. i. 4, 

20. Holiness and Liberty — Rom. vi. 18-22, 

21. Holiness and Happiness — Rom. xiv. 17, 



PAGB 

11 
19 

28 

36 

46 

55 

64 

73 

81 

89 

98 

107 

117 

125 

133 

142 

150 

158 

167 

175 

184 



CONTENTS. 



DAY PAG3 

22. In Christ our Sanctification— 1 Cor. i. 30, 31, . . 192 

23. Holiness and the Body— 1 Cor. iii. 16, . . . 201 

24. Holiness and Cleansing — 2 Cor. vii. 1, . . . 210 

25. Holiness and Blamelessness — 1 Thess. iii. 12, 13, . 219 

26. Holiness and the Will of God— 1 Thess. iv. 3, . . 227 

27. Holiness and Service— 2 Tim. ii. 21, . . . 235 

28. The Way into the Holiest— Heb. x. 19, . . 243 

29. Holiness and Chastisement — Heb. xii. 10, 14, . 253 

30. The Unction from the Holy One— 1 John ii. 20, 27, • 262 
33. Holiness and Heaven — 2 Pet. iii. 11, . • . 27T 



Notes, 



281 



First Day. 



HOLY IN CHEIST. 

(Soti's Call to holiness* 

'Like as He which called yon is holy, be ye yourselves also 
holy in all manner of living; because it is written, Ye shall be 
holy, for I am holy.' — 1 Pet. i. 15, 16. 

THE call of God is the manifestation in time of 
the purpose of eternity : ' Whom He predesti- 
nated, them He also called' Believers are ' the 
called according to His purpose.' In His call He 
reveals to us what His thoughts and His will con- 
cerning us are, and what the life to which He 
invites us. In His call He makes clear to us what 
the hope of our calling is ; as we spiritually appre- 
hend and enter into this, our life on earth will be 
the reflection of His purpose in eternity. 

Holy Scripture uses more than one word to 
indicate the object or aim of our calling, but none 
more frequently than what Peter speaks of here — 
God has called us to be holy as He is holy. Paul 
addresses believers twice as c called to be holy ' 
(Eom. i. 7 ; 1 Cor. i. 2). ' God called us/ he says, 

/not for uncleanness, but in sanctifieation* (1 Thess. 

li 



12 HOLY IN CHRIST. 

iv. 7). When he writes, * The God of peace sanctify 
you wholly/ he adds, 'Faithful is He which calleth 
you, who also will do it' (1 Thess. v. 24). The 
calling itself is spoken of as ' a holy calling/ The 
eternal purpose of which the calling is the outcome, 
is continually also connected with holiness as its 
aim. ' He hath chosen us in Him, that we should 
be holy and without blame' (Eph. i. 4). 'Whom 
God chose from the beginning unto salvation in 
sanctification* (2 Thess. ii. 12). 'Elect according 
to the foreknowledge of the Father, through sancti- 
fication of the Spirit ' (1 Pet. i. 2). The call is the 
unveiling of the purpose that the Father from 
eternity had set His heart upon : that we should be 
holy. 

It needs no proof that it is of infinite importance 
to know aright what God has called us to. A 
misunderstanding here may have fatal results. 
You may have heard that God calls you to salva- 
tion or to happiness, to receive pardon or to obtain 
heaven, and never noticed that all these were sub- 
ordinate. It was to ' salvation in sanctification' it 
was to Holiness in the first place, as the element in 
which salvation and heaven are to be found. The 
complaints of many Christians as to lack of joy and 
strength, as to failure and want of growth, are 
simply owing to this — the place God gave Holiness 
in His call they have not given it in their response. 
God and they have never yet come to an agreement 
on this. 

No wonder that Paul, in the chapter in which he 



god's call to holiness. 13 

had spoken to the Ephesians of their being c chosen 
to be holy,' prays for the spirit of wisdom and 
revelation in the knowledge of God to be given to 
believers, that they might know ' the hope of their 
calling! Let all of us, who feel that we have too 
little realized that we are called to Holiness, pray 
this prayer. It is just what we need. Let us ask 
God to show us how, as He who hath called us is 
Himself holy, so we are to be holy too ; our calling 
is a holy calling, a calling before and above every- 
thing, to Holiness. Let us ask Him to show us 
what Holiness is, His Holiness first, and then our 
Holiness ; to show us how He has set His heart 
upon it as the one thing He wants to see in us, as 
being His own image and likeness ; to show us too 
the unutterable blessedness and glory of sharing 
with Christ in His Holiness. Oh ! that God by 
His Spirit would teach us what it means that we 
are called to be holy as He is holy. We can easily 
conceive what a mighty influence it would exert. 

' Like as He which called you is holy, be ye 
yourselves also holy.' How this call of God shows 
us the true motive to Holiness. ' Be ye holy, for I 
am holy.' It is as if God said, Holiness is my 
blessedness and my glory : without this you can- 
not, in the very nature of things, see me or enjoy 
me. Holiness is my blessedness and my glory : 
there is nothing higher to be conceived ; I invite 
you to share with me in it, I invite you to likeness 
to myself : ' Be ye holy, for I am holy.' Is it not 
enough, has it no attraction, does it not move and 



1 4: HOLY IN CHRIST. 

draw you mightily, the hope of being with me 
partakers of my Holiness ? I have nothing better 
to offer — I offer you myself : ' Be holy, for I am 
holy/ Shall we not cry earnestly to God to show 
us the glory of His Holiness, that our souls may 
be made willing to give everything in response to 
this wondrous call ? 

As we listen to the call, it shows also the nature 
of true Holiness. 'Like as He is holy, so be ye 
also holy/ To be holy is to be Godlike, to have 
a disposition, a will, a character like God. The 
thought almost looks like blasphemy, until we 
listen again, ' He hath chosen us in Christ to 
be holy/ In Christ the Holiness of God appeared 
in a human life : in Christ's example, in His mind 
and Spirit, we have the Holiness of the Invisible 
One translated into the forms of human life and 
conduct. To be Christlike is to be Godlike, and to 
be Christlike is to be holy as God is holy. 

The call equally reveals the power of Holiness. 
■ There is none holy but the Lord ; ' there is no 
Holiness but what He has, or rather what He is, 
and gives. Holiness is not something we do or 
attain: it is the communication of the Divine life, 
the inbreathing of the Divine nature, the power of the 
Divine Presence resting on us. And our power to 
become holy is to be found in the call of God : the 
Holy One calls us to Himself, that He may make 
us holy in possessing Himself. He not only says 
' I am holy/ but ' I am the Lord, who make holy/ 
It is because the call to Holiness comes from the 



god's call to holiness. 15 

God of infinite Power and Love that we may have 
the confidence : we can be holy. 

The call no less reveals the standard of Holiness. 
' ZiJce as He is holy, so ye also yourselves/ or (as in 
margin, B.V.), ' Like the Holy One, which calleth 
you, be ye yourselves also holy/ There is not one 
standard of Holiness for God and another for man. 
The nature of lioht is the same, whether we see it 
in the sun or in a candle : the nature of Holiness 
remains unchanged, whether it be God or man in 
whom it dwells. The Lord Jesus could say 
nothing less than, ' Be perfect, even as your Father 
in heaven is perfect/ When God calls us to Holi- 
ness, He calls us to Himself and His own life : 
the more carefully we listen to the voice, and let it 
sink into our hearts, the more will all human 
standards fall away, and only the words be heard, 
Holy, as I am holy. 

And the call shows us the path to Holiness. 
The calling of God is one of mighty efficacy, an 
effectual calling. Oh ! let us but listen to it, let 
us but listen to Him, and the call will with Divine 
power work what it offers. He calleth the things 
that are not as though they were : His call gives 
life to the dead, and holiness to those whom He has 
made alive. He calls us to listen as He speaks of 
His Holiness, and of our holiness like His. He calls 
us to Himself, to study, to fear, to love, to claim His 
Holiness. He calls us to Christ, in whom Divine 
Holiness became human Holiness, to see and admire, 
to desire and accept what is all for us. He calls us 



16 HOLY IN CHRIST. 

to the indwelling and the teaching of the Spirit ol 
Holiness, to yield ourselves that He may bring 
home to us and breathe within us what is ours in 
Christ. Christian ! listen to God calling thee to 
Holiness. Come and learn what His Holiness is, 
and what thine is and must be. 

Yes, be very silent and listen. When God 
called Abraham, he answered, Here am I. When 
God called Moses from the bush, he answered, Here 
am I, and he hid his face, for he was afraid to look 
upon God. God is calling thee to Holiness, to 
Himself the Holy One, that He may make thee 
holy. Let thy whole soul answer, Here am I, 
Lord ! Speak, Lord ! Show Thyself, Lord ! Here 
am I. As you listen, the voice will sound ever 
deeper and ever stiller : Be holy, as I am holy. Be 
holy, for I am holy. You will hear a voice coming 
out of the great eternity, from the council-chamber 
of redemption, and as you catch its distant whisper, 
it will be, Be holy, I am holy. You will hear a 
voice from Paradise, the Creator making the seventh 
day holy for man whom He had created, and saying, 
Be holy. You will hear the voice from Sinai, amid 
thunderings and lightnings, and still it is, Be holy, 
as I am holy. You will hear a voice from Calvary, 
and there above all it is, Be holy, for I am holy. 

Child of God, have you ever realized it, our 
Father is calling us to Himself, to be holy as 
He is holy ? Must we not confess that happiness 
has been to us more than holiness, salvation than 
sanctification ? Oh! it is not too late to redeem 



god's call to holiness. 17 

the erior. Let us now band ourselves together to 
listen to the voice that calls, to draw nigh, and find 
out and know what Holiness is, or rather, find out 
and know Himself the Holy One. And if the first 
approach to Him fill us with shame and confusion, 
make us fear and shrink back, let us still listen to 
the Voice and the Call, 'Be holy, as I am holy.' 
.' Faithful is He which calleth, who also will do it: 
All our fears and questions will be met by the Holy 
One who has revealed His Holiness, with this one 
purpose in view, that we might share it with Him. 
As we yield ourselves in deep stillness of soul to 
listen to the Holy Voice that calls us, it will waken 
within us new desire and strong faith, and the 
most precious of all promises will be to us this 
word of Divine command : 

Be holy, for I am holy. 



Lord ! the alone Holy One, Thou hast called 
us to be holy, even as Thou art holy. Lord ! how 
can we, unless Thou reveal to us Thy Holiness. 
Show us, we pray Thee, how Thou art holy, how 
holy Thou art, what Thy holiness is, that we may 
know how we are to be holy, how holy we are to 
be. And when the sight of Thy Holiness only 
shows us the more how unholy we are, teach us 
that Thou makest partakers of Thy own Holiness 
those who come to Thee for it. 

God ! we come to Thee, the Holy One. It is 
in knowing and finding and having Thyself, that 

B 



18 HOLY IN CHTtlST. 

the soul finds Holiness. We do beseech Thee, as 
we now come to Thee, establish it in the thoughts 
of our heart, that the one object of Thy calling us, 
and of our coming to Thee, is Holiness. Thou 
wouldst have us like Thyself, partakers of Thy 
Holiness. If * ever our heart becomes afraid, as if 
it were too high, or rests content with a salvation 
less than Holiness, Blessed God ! let us hear Thy 
voice calling again, Be holy, I am holy. Let that 
call be our motive and our strength, because faithful 
is He that calleth, who also will do it. Let that 
call mark our standard and our path ; oh ! let our 
life be such as Thou art able to make it. 

Holy Father ! I bow in lowly worship and silence 
before Thee. Let now Thine own voice sound in 
the depths of my heart calling me, Be holy, as I 
am holy. Amen. 

1. Let me press it upon every reader of this little booh, that if it is to help 
him in the pursuit of Holiness, he must begin with God. Himself. You must 
go to Him who calls you. It is only in the personal revelation of God to 
you, as He speaks, I am holy, that the command, Be ye holy, can have life or 
power. 

2. Remember, as a believer, you have already accepted God's call, even 
though you did not fully understand it. Let it be a settled matter, that what' 
ever you see to be the meaning of the call, you will at once accept and carry 
out. If God calls me to be holy, holy I will be. 

3. Take fast hold of the word : 'The God of peace sanctify you wholly: 
faithful is He which calleth you, who also will do it.' In that faith listen 
to God calling you. 

4. Do be still now, and listen to your Father calling you. Ask for and count 
upon the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Holiness, to open your heart to under- 
stand this holy calling. And then speak out the answer you have to give to 
this call. 



god's provision foe holiness. 1 9 



Second Day, 
HOLY IN CHEIST. 

(Soft's ^robtston for holiness. 

'To those that are made holy in Christ Jesus, called to be 
holy:—l Cor. i. 2. 

6 To all the holy ones in Christ Jesus which are at Philippi. 
Salute every holy one in Christ Jesus.' 1 — Phil. i. 1, iv. 21. 

HOLY ! In Christ ! In these two expressions 
we have perhaps the most wonderful words 
of all the Bible. 

Holy ! the word of unfathomable meaning, which 
the Seraphs utter with veiled faces. Holy ! the 

1 There is one disadvantage in English in our having synonyms 
of which some are derived from Saxon and others from Latin. 
Ordinary readers are apt to forget that in our translation of the 
Bible we may use two different words for what in the original is 
expressed by one term. This is the case with the words holy, 
holiness, keep holy, hallow, saint, sanctify, and sanctification. 
When God in Christ is called the Holy One, the word in Hebrew 
and Greek is exactly the same that is used when the believer is 
called a saint : he too is a holy one. So the three words hallow, 
keep holy, sanctify, all represent but one term in the original, of 
which the real meaning is to make holy, as it is in German and 
Dutch, heiligujig, heiliging (holying), and heiUgmaking (holy* 
making). 



20 HOLY IN CHRIST. 

word in which all God's perfections centre, and ol 
which His glory is but the streaming forth. Holy ! 
the word which reveals the purpose with which 
God from eternity thought of man, and tells what 
man's highest glory in the coming eternity is to be : 
to be partakers of His Holiness ! 

In Christ ! the word in which all the wisdom 
and love of God are unveiled ! The Father giving 
His Son to be one with us ! the Son dying on the 
cross to make us one with Himself ! the Holy Spirit 
of the Father dwelling in us to establish and main- 
tain that union ! In Christ ! what a summary of 
what redemption has done, and of the inconceivably 
blessed life in which the child of God is permitted 
to dwell. In Christ ! the one lesson we have to 
study on earth. God's one answer to all our needs 
and prayers. In Christ ! the guarantee and -the 
foretaste of eternal glory. 

What wealth of meaning and blessing in the two 
words combined : Holy in Christ ! Here is God's 
provision for our holiness, God's response to our ques- 
tion, How to be holy ? Often and often as we hear 
the call, Be ye holy, even as I am holy, it is as if there 
is and ever must be a great gulf between the holiness 
of God and man. In Christ ! is the bridge that 
crosses the gulf ; nay rather, His fulness has filled it 
up. In Christ ! God and man meet ; in Christ ! 
the Holiness of God has found us, and made us its 
own ; has become human, and can indeed become 
our very own. To the anxious cries and the heart- 
yearnings of thousands of thirsty souls who have 



god's provision for holiness. 21 

believed in Jesus and yet know not how to be holy, 
here is God's answer: Ye are Holy in Christ 
Jesus. Would they but hearken, and believe; 
would they but take these Divine words, and say 
them over, if need be, a thousand times, how God's 
light would shine, and fill their hearts with joy and 
love as they echo them back : Yes, now I see it. 
Holy in Christ ! Made holy in Christ Jesus ! 

As we set ourselves to study these wondrous 
words, let us remember that it is only God Himself 
who can reveal to us what Holiness truly is. Let 
us fear our own thoughts, and crucify our own 
wisdom. Let us give up ourselves to receive, in 
the power of the life of God Himself, working 
in us by the Holy Spirit, that which is deeper and 
truer than human thought, Christ Himself as our 
Holiness. In this dependence upon the teaching of 
the Spirit of Holiness, let us seek simply to accept 
what Holy Scripture sets before us ; as the revela- 
tion of the Holy One of old was a very slow and 
gradual one, so let us be content patiently to follow 
step by step the path of the shining light through 
the Word ; it will shine more and more unto the 
perfect day. 

We shall first have to study the word Holy in 
the Old Testament. In Israel as the holy people, 
the type of us who now are holy in Christ, we shall 
see with what fulness of symbol God sought to 
work into the very constitution of the people some 
apprehension of what He would have them be. 
In the law we shall see how Holy is the great key* 



22 HOLY IN CHRIST. 

word of the redemption which it was meant to 
serve and prepare for. In the prophets we shall 
hear how the Holiness of God is revealed as the 
source whence the coming redemption should spring : 
it is not so much Holiness as the Holy One they 
speak of, who would, in redeeming love and saving 
righteousness, make Himself known as the God of 
His people. 

And when the meaning of the word has been 
somewhat opened up, and the deep need of the 
blessing made manifest in the Old Testament, we 
shall come to the New to find how that need was 
fulfilled. In Christ, the Holy One of God, Divine 
Holiness will be found in human life and human 
nature ; a truly human will being made perfect and 
growing up through obedience into complete union 
with all the Holy Will of God. In the sacrifice of 
Himself on the cross, that holy nature gave itself 
up to the death, that, like the seed-corn, it might 
through death live again and reproduce itself in us. 
In the gift from the throne of the Spirit of God's 
Holiness, representing and revealing and commu- 
nicating the unseen Christ, the holy life of Christ 
descends and takes possession of His people, and 
they become one with Him. As the Old Testament 
had no higher word than that Holy, the New has 
none deeper than this, in Chkist. The being in 
Him, the abiding in Him, the being rooted in Him, 
the growing up in Him and into Him in all things, 
are the Divine expressions in which the wonderful 
and complete oneness between us and our Saviour 



god's provision for holiness. 23 

are brought as near us as human language 
can do. 

And when Old and Xew Testament have each 
given their message, the one in teaching us what 
Holy, the other what in Christ means, we have in 
the word of God, that unites the two, the most 
complete summary of the Great Redemption that 
God's love has provided. The everlasting certainty, 
the wonderful sufficiency, the infinite efficacy of the 
Holiness that God has prepared for us in His Son, 
are all revealed in this blessed, Holy in Christ. 

' The Holy Ones in Christ Jesus ! ' Such is the 
name, beloved fellow-believers, which we bear in 
Holy Scripture, in the language of the Holy Spirit. 
It is no mere statement of doctrine, that we are 
holy in Christ : it is no deep theological discussion 
to which we are invited ; but out of the depths 
of God's loving heart, there comes a voice thus 
addressing His beloved children. It is the name 
by which the Father calls His children. That 
name tells us of God's provision for our being holy. 
It is the revelation of what God has given us, and 
what we already are ; of what God waits to work 
in us, and what can be ours in personal practical 
possession. That name, gratefully accepted, joyfully 
confessed, trustfully pleaded, will be the pledge and 
the power of our attainment of the Holiness to 
which we have been called. 

And so we shall find that as we go along, all our 
study and all God's teaching will be comprised in 
three great lessons. The first a revelation, ' I am 



24 HOLY IN CHKIST. 

holy;' the second a command, ( Be ye holy ;' the 
third a gift, the link between the two, c Ye are holy 
in Christ' 

First comes the revelation, C I am holy/ Our 
study must be on bended knee, in the spirit of 
worship and deep humility. God must reveal 
Himself to us, if we are to know what Holy is. 
The deep unholiness of our nature and all that is 
of nature must be shown us ; with Moses and 
Isaiah, when the Holy One revealed Himself to 
them, we must fear and tremble, and confess how 
utterly unfit we are for the revelation or the fellow- 
ship, without the cleansing of fire. In the con- 
sciousness of the utter impotence of our own 
wisdom or understanding to know God, our souls 
must in contrition, brokenness from ourselves and 
our power or efforts, yield to God's Spirit, the Spirit 
of Holiness, to reveal God as the Holy One. And 
as we begin to know Him in His infinite righteous- 
ness, in His fiery burning zeal against all that is 
sin, and His infinite self-sacrificing love to free the 
sinner from his sin, and to bring him to His own 
perfection, we shall learn to wonder at and worship 
this glorious God, to feel and deplore our terrible 
unlikeness to Him, to long and cry for some share 
in the Divine beauty and blessedness of this 
Holiness. 

And then will come with new meaning the 
command, ' Be holy, as I am holy/ Oh, my 
brethren ! ye who profess to obey the commands 
of your God, do give this all-surpassing and all- 



god's peo vision for HOLINESS. 25 

including command that first place in your heart 
and life which it claims. Do be holy with the 
likeness of God's Holiness. Do be holy as He is 
holy. And if you find that the more you meditate 
and study, the less you can grasp this infinite 
holiness ; that the more you at moments grasp of 
it, the more you despair of a holiness so Divine ; 
remember that such breaking down and such 
despair is just what the command was meant to 
work. Learn to cease from your own wisdom as 
well as your own goodness ; draw near in poverty 
of spirit to let the Holy One show you how utterly 
above human knowledge or human power is the 
holiness He demands ; to the soul that ceases from 
self, and has no confidence in the flesh, He will 
show and give the holiness He calls us to. 

It is to such that the great gift of Holiness in 
Christ becomes intelligible and acceptable. Christ 
brings the Holiness of God nigh by showing it in 
human conduct and intercourse. He brings it nigh 
by removing the barrier between it and us, between 
God and us. He brings it nigh, because He' makes 
us one with Himself. ' Holy in Christ : ' our holi- 
ness is a Divine bestowment, held for us, communi- 
cated to us, working mightily in us because we are 
in Him. ' In Christ ! ' oh, that wonderful in ! our 
very life rooted in the life of Christ. That holy 
Son and Servant of the Father, beautiful in His life 
of love and obedience on earth, sanctifying Himself 
for us — that life of Christ, the ground in which I 
am planted and rooted, the soil from which I draw 



26 HOLY IN CHRIST. 

as my nourishment its every quality and its very 
nature. How that word sheds its light both on the 
revelation, ' I am holy/ and on the command. l Be 
ye holy, as I am,' and binds them in one ! In 
Christ I see what God's Holiness is. and what my 
holiness is. In Him both are one, and both are 
mine. In Him I am holy ; abiding and growing up 
in Him, I can be holy in all manner of living, as God 
is holy. 

Be ye holy, as I am holy. 



Most Holy God ! we do beseech Thee, reveal 
Thou to Thy children what it meaneth that Thou 
hast not only called them to holiness, but even 
called them by this name, ' the holy ones in Christ 
Jesus.' Oh that every child of Thine might know 
that He bears this name, might know what it 
means, and what power there is in it to make Hirn 
what it calls him. Holy Lord God ! oh that the 
time of Thy visitation might speedily come, and 
each child of Thine on earth be known as a holy 
one ! 

To this end we pray Thee to reveal to Thy saints 
what Thy Holiness is. Teach us to worship and to 
wait until Thou hast spoken unto our souls wir^ 
Divine Power Thy word, 4 I am holy/ Oh that \ » 
may search out and convict us of our unholiness ! 

And reveal to us, we pray Thee, that as holy as 
Thou art, even a consuming fire, so holy is Thy 
command in its determined and uncompromising pur- 



god's pko vision for holiness. 27 

pose to have us holy. God ! let Thy voice sound 
through the depth of our being, with a power from 
which there is no escape : Be holy, be holy. 

And let us thus, between Thine infinite Holiness 
on the one hand and our unholiness on the other, 
be driven and be drawn to accept of Christ as our 
sanctification, to abide in Him as our life and our 
power to be what Thou wouldst have us — ' Holy in 
Christ Jesus/ 

Father ! let Thy Spirit make this precious 
word life and truth within us. Amen. 



/. You are entering anew on the study of a Diuine mystery. ' Trust not to 
your own understanding ; ' wait for the teaching of the Spirit of truth. 

2. In Christ. A commentator says, ' The phrase denotes two moral facts 
—first, the act of faith whereby a man lays hold of Christ ; second, the 
community of life with Him contracted by means of this faith.' There is still 
another fact the greatest of all : that it is by an act of Diuine power that I 
am in Christ and am kept in Him. It is this I want to realize : the Diuineness 
of my position in Jesus. 

3. Grasp the two sides of the truth. You are holy in Christ with a Diuine 
holiness, in the faith of that you are to be holy, to become holy with a 
human holiness, the Diuine Holiness manifest in all the conduct of a human 
life. 

4. This Christ is a Liuing Person, a Louing Sauiour : how He will delight to 
get complete possession, and do all the work in you! Keep hold of this all 
along as we go on : you haue a claim on Christ, on His Loue and Power, to 
make you holy. As His redeemed one, you are at this moment, whateuer and 
whereuer you be, in Him. His Holy Presence and Loue are around you. You 
are in Him, in the enclosure of that tender loue, encircling you with His Holy 
Presence. In that Presence accepted and realized is your holiness. 



28 HOLY IN CHRIST. 



Third Day. 



HOLY IN CHKIST. 

holiness anU Creation* 

• And God blessed the Sabbath day, and sanctified it, because 
that in it He had rested from all the work which God created 
and made.' — Gen. ii. 3. 



I 



N Genesis we have the Book of Beginnings. To 
its first three chapters we are specially in- 
debted for a Divine light shining on the many 
questions to which human wisdom never could find 
an answer. In our search after Holiness, we are 
led thither too. In the whole book of Genesis the 
word Holy occurs but once. But that once in 
such a connection as to open to us the secret 
spring whence flows all that the Bible has to teach 
or to give us of this heavenly blessing. The full 
meaning of the precious word we want to master, 
of the priceless blessing we want to get possession 
of, ' Sanctified in Christ,' takes its rise in what is 
here written of that wondrous act of God, by which 
He closed His creation work, and revealed how 
wonderfully it would be continued and perfected. 
When God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified 



HOLINESS AND CEEATION. 29 

it, He lifted it above the other days, and set it 
apart to a work and a revelation of Himself, 
excelling in glory all that had preceded. In this 
simple expression, Scripture reveals to us the 
character of God as the Holy One who makes holy ; 
the way in which He makes holy, by entering in 
and resting ; and the power of blessing with which 
God's making holy is ever accompanied. These 
three lessons we shall find it of the deepest im- 
portance to study well, as containing the root- 
principles of all that Scripture will have to teach 
us in our pursuit of Holiness. 

1. God sanctified the Sabbath day. Of the 
previous six days the keyword was, from the first 
calling into existence of the heaven and the earth, 
down to the making of man : God created. All at 
once a new word is introduced ; something higher 
than creation, that for which creation is to exist, is 
now to be revealed; God Almighty is now to be 
known as God Most Holy. And just as the work 
of creation shows His Power, without that Power 
being mentioned, so His making holy the seventh 
day reveals His character as the Holy One. 
As Omnipotence is the chief of His natural, 
so Holiness is the first of His moral attributes. 
And just as He alone is Creator, so He alone 
; >s Sanctifier; to make holy is His work as 
truly and exclusively as to create. Blessed is 
the child of God who truly and fully believes 
this! 

God sanctified the Sabbath day. The word can 



30 HOLY IN CHRIST. 

teach us what the nature is of the work God does 
when He makes holy. Sanctification in Paradise 
cannot be essentially different from Sanctification 
in Eedemption. God had pronounced all His works, 
and man the chief of them, very good. And yet 
they were not holy. The six days' work had nought 
of defilement or sin, and yet it was not holy. The 
seventh day needed to be specially made holy, for 
the great work of making holy man, who was 
already very good. In Exodus, God says distinctly 
that He sanctified the Sabbath day, with a view to 
man's sanctification. ' That ye may know that I 
am the Lord that doth sanctify you.' Goodness, 
innocence, purity, freedom from sin, is not Holiness. 
Goodness is the work of omnipotence, an attribute 
of nature, as God creates it : holiness is something 
infinitely higher. We speak of the holiness of God 
as His infinite moral perfection ; man's moral 
perfection could only come in the use of his will, 
consenting freely to and abiding in the will of God. 
Thus alone could he become holy. The seventh day 
was made holy by God as a pledge that He would 
now make man holy. In the ages that preceded 
the seventh day, the Creation period, God's Power, 
Wisdom, and Goodness had been displayed. The 
age to come, in the seventh day period, is to be the 
dispensation of holiness : God made holy the seventh, 
day. 

2. God sanctified the Sabbath day, "because in it 
He rested from all His work. This rest was some- 
thing real. In Creation, God had, as it were, gone 



HOLINESS AND CREATION. 31 

out of Himself to bring forth something new : in 
resting He now returns from His creating work 
into Himself, to rejoice in His love over the man 
He has created, and communicate Himself to hinh 
This opens up to us the way in which God makes 
holy. The connection between the resting and 
making holy was no arbitrary one ; the making 
holy was no after-thought ; in the very nature of 
things it could not be otherwise : He sanctified 
"because He rested in it; He sanctified by resting. 
As He regards His finished work, more especially 
man, rejoices in it, and, as we have it in Exodus, 
' is refreshed/ this time of His Divine rest is the 
time in which He will carry on unto perfection 
what He has begun, and make man, created in His 
image, in very deed partaker of His highest glory, 
His Holiness. 

Where God rests in complacency and love, He makes 
holy. The Presence of God revealing itself, entering 
in, and taking possession, is what constitutes true 
Holiness. As we go down the ages, studying the 
progressive unfolding of what Holiness is, this truth 
will continually meet us. In God's indwelling in 
heaven, in His temple on earth, in His beloved Son, 
in the person of the believer through the Holy 
Spirit, we shall everywhere find that Holiness is not 
something that man is or does, but that it always 
comes where God comes. In the deepest meaning 
of the words : where God enters to rest, there He 
sanctifies. And when we come to study the New 
Testament revelation of the way in which we are 



32 HOLY IN CHKIST. 

to be holy, we shall find in this one of our earliest 
and deepest lessons. It is as we enter into the 
rest of God that we become partakers of His 
Holiness. ' We which have believed do enter into 
that rest/ e He that hath entered into his rest hath 
himself also rested from his works, as God did from 
His.' It is as the soul ceases from its own efforts, 
and rests in Him who has finished all for us and will 
finish all in us, as the soul yields itself in the quiet 
confidence of true faith to rest in God, that it will 
know what true Holiness is. When the soul enters 
into the Sabbath stillness of perfect trust, God 
comes to keep His Sabbath holy; and the soul 
where He rests He sanctifies. Whether we speak 
of His own day, 'He sanctified it/ or His own 
people c sanctified in Christ/ the secret of Holiness 
is ever the same : ' He sanctified because he rested/ 
3. And then we read, ' He Messed and sanctified 
it/ As used in the first chapter and throughout 
the book of Genesis, the word ' God blessed ' is one 
of great significance. ' Be fruitful and multiply ' 
was, as to Adam, so later to Noah and Abraham, 
the Divine exposition of its meaning. The blessing 
with which God blessed Adam and Noah and 
Abraham was that of fruitfulness and increase, the 
power to reproduce and multiply. When God 
blessed the seventh day, He filled it so with the 
living power of His Holiness, that in it that Holiness 
might increase and reproduce itself in those who, 
like Him, seek to enter into its rest and sanctify it. 
The seventh day is that in which we are still living, 



HOLINESS AND CREATION. 33 

Of each creation day it is written, up to the last> 
* There was evening, and there was morning, the 
sixth day/ Of the seventh the record has not yet 
been made ; we are living in it now, God's own 
day of rest and holiness and blessing. Entering 
into it in a very special manner, and taking possession 
of it, as the time for His rejoicing in His creature, 
and manifesting the fulness of His love in sancti- 
fying him, He has made the dispensation we 
now live in one of Divine and mighty blessing. 
And He has at the same time taught us what the 
blessing is. Holiness is blessedness. Fellowship 
with God in His holy rest is blessedness. And as 
all God's blessings in Christ have but one fountain, 
God's Holiness, so they all have but one aim, making 
us partakers of that Holiness. The Creation bless- 
ing of goodness and fruitfulness and dominion is to 
be crowned by the Sabbath blessing of rest in God 
and holiness in fellowship with Him. 

God's finished work of Creation was marred by 
sin, and our fellowship with Him in the blessing of 
His holy rest cut off. The finished work of redemp- 
tion opened for us a truer rest and a surer entrance 
into the Holiness of God. As He rested in His 
holy day, so He now rests in His holy Son. In 
Him we now can enter fully into the rest of God. 
' Made holy in Christ,' let us rest in Him. Let us 
rest, because we see that as wonderfully as God by 
His mighty power finished His work of Creation, 
will He complete and perfect His work of sanctifi- 
cation. Let us yield ourselves to God in Christ, to 

c 



34 HOLY IN CHRIST. 

rest where He rested, to be made holy with His 
own holiness, and to be blessed with God's own 
blessing. God the Sanctifier is the name now 
inscribed upon the throne of God the Creator. At 
the threshold of the history of the human race there 
shines this word of infinite promise and hope : 
' God blessed and sanctified the seventh day because 
in it He rested.' 

Be ye holy, for I am holy. 

Blessed Lord God ! I bow before Thee in lowly 
worship. I adore Thee as God the Creator, and 
God the Sanctifier. Thou hast revealed Thyself 
as God Almighty and God Most Holy. I beseech 
Thee, teach me to know and to trust Thee as such. 

I humbly ask Thee for grace to learn and hold 
fast 'the deep spiritual truths Thou hast revealed in 
making holy the Sabbath day. Thy purpose in 
man s creation is to show forth Thy Holiness, and 
make him partaker of it. Oh, teach me to believe 
in Thee as God my Creator and Sanctifier, to believe 
with my whole heart that the same Almighty power 
which gave the sixth - day blessing of creation, 
secures to us the seventh-day blessing of sanctifica- 
tion. Thy will is our sanctification. 

And teach me, Lord, to understand better how 
this blessing comes. It is where Thou enterest to 
rest and refresh and reveal Thyself that Thou 
makest holy. my God ! may my heart be Thy 
resting-place. I would, in the stillness and con- 



HOLINESS AND CREATION. 35 

fidence of a restful faith, rest in Thee, believing that 
Thou doest all in me, Let such fellowship with 
Thee, and Thy love, and Thy will be to me the 
secret of a life of holiness. I ask it in the name of 
our Lord Jesus, in whom Thou hast sanctified us. 
Amem 



7. God the Creator is God the Sanctifi er. The Omnipotence that did the first 
work does the second too. I can trust God Almighty to make me holy. God is 
holy : if God is everything to me, His presence will be my holiness. 

2. Rest is ceasing from work, not to work no more, but to begin a new work. 
God rests and begins at once to make holy that in which He rests. He 
created by the word of His power ; He rests in His love. Creation was the 
building of the temple ; sanctifi cation is the entering in and taking pos- 
session. Oh, that wonderful entering into human nature I 

3. God rests only in what is restful, wholly at His disposal. It is in the 
restfulness of faith that we must look to God the Sanctifi er ; He will come in 
and keep His holy Sabbath in the restful soul. We rest in God's rest ; God 
rests in our rest, 

4. The God thai rests in man whom He made, and in resting sanctifies, and 
in sanctifying blesses : this is our God ; praise and worship Him, And trust 
Him to do His work. 

5. Rest! what a simple word. The Rest of God! what an inconceivable 
,?*!ness of Life and Love in that word. Let us meditate on it and worship 
before Him t until it overshadow us and we enter into it— the Rest of God. 



36 HOLY IN CHRIST. 



Fourth Day. 



HOLY IN CHEIST. 

holiness antr Bebelattott* 

4 And when the Lord saw that Moses turned aside to see, He 
called unto him out of the midst of the bush, and said, Moses, 
Moses. And he said, Here am I. And He said, Draw not nigh 
hither; put off thy shoes from thy feet, for the place where 
thou standest is holy ground. And Moses hid his face, for He 
was afraid to look upon God.' — Ex. iii. 4-6. 

AND why was it holy ground ? Because God 
had come there and occupied it. Where 
God is, there is holiness ; it is the presence of God 
makes holy. This is the truth we met with in 
Paradise when man was just created ; here, where 
Scripture uses the word Holy for the second time, it 
is repeated and enforced. A careful study of the 
word in the light of the burning bush will further 
open its deep significance. Let us see what the 
sacred history, what the revelation of God, and 
what Moses teaches us of this holy ground. 

1. Note first the place this first direct revelation 
of God to man as the Holy One takes in sacred 
history. In Paradise we found the word Holy 
used of the seventh day. Since that time twenty- 



HOLINESS AND KEVELATION. 37 

five centuries have elapsed. We found in God's 
sanctifying the day of rest a promise of a new 
dispensation — the revelation of the Almighty 
Creator to be followed by that of the Holy One 
making holy. And yet throughout the book of 
Genesis the word never occurs again ; it is as if 
God's Holiness is in abeyance ; only in Exodus, with 
the calling of Moses, does it make its appearance 
again. This is a fact of deep import. Just as a 
parent or teacher seeks, in early childhood, to impress 
one lesson at a time, so God deals in the education 
of the human race. After having in the flood 
exhibited His righteous judgment against sin, He 
calls Abraham to be the father of a chosen people. 
And as the foundation of all His dealings with that 
people, He teaches him and his seed first of all the 
lesson of childlike trust — trust in Him as the 
Almighty, with whom nothing is too wonderful, and 
trust in Him as the Faithful One, whose oath could 
not be broken. With the growth of Israel to a 
people we see the revelation advancing to a new 
stage. The simplicity of childhood gives way to 
the waywardness of youth, and God must now 
interfere with the discipline and restriction of law. 
Haviug gained a right to a place in their confidence 
as the God of their fathers, He prepares them for a 
further revelation. Of the God of Abraham the 
chief attribute was that He was the Almighty One ; 
of the God of Israel, Jehovah, that He is the Holy One. 
And what is to be the special mark of the new 
period that is now about to be inaugurated, and 



38 HOLY IN CHKIST. 

which is introduced by the word holy ? God tells 
Moses that He is now about to reveal Himself in a 
new character. He had been known to Abraham 
as God Almighty, the God of Promise (Ex. vi. 3). 
He would now manifest Himself as Jehovah, the 
God of Fulfilment, especially in the redemption 
and deliverance of His people from the oppression. 
He had foretold to Abraham. God Almighty is 
the God of Creation : Abraham believed in God, 
' who quickeneth the dead, and calleth the things 
that are not as though they were.' Jehovah is 
the God of Eedemption and of Holiness. "With 
Abraham there was not a word of sin or guilt, and 
therefore not of redemption or holiness. To Israel 
the law is to be given, to convince of sin and pre- 
pare the way for holiness ; it is Jehovah, the Holy 
One of Israel, the Kedeemer, who now appears. 
And it is the presence of this Holy One that 
makes the holy ground. 

2. And how does this Presence reveal itself ? In 
the burning bush God makes Himself known as 
dwelling in the midst of the fire. Elsewhere in 
Holy Scripture the connection between fire and the 
Holiness of God is clearly expressed : ' The light 
of Israel shall be for a fire, and the Holy One for % 
flame.' The nature of fire may be either beneficent 
or destructive. The sun, the great central fire, may 
give life and fruitfulness, or may scorch to death. 
All depends upon occupying the right position, upon 
the relation in which we stand to it. And so 
everywhere, when God the Holy One reveals Him- 



HOLINESS AND REVELATION. 39 

self, we shall find the two sides together : God's 
Holiness as judgment against sin. ying the 

sinner who remains in it. and as Mercy freeing His 
people from it. Judgment and Mercy ever go 

bher, Of the elements of nature there is none 
of such spiritual and mighty ei: fire : what 

it consumes it takes and changes into its own 

:ual nature, rejecting as smoke and ashes what 
cannot be assimilated. And so the Holiness of 
God is that infinite Perfection by which He keeps 
Himself free from all that is not Divine, and yer 

fellowship with the creature, and takes it up 
into union with Himself, destroying and casting out 
all that will not yield itself to Him. 

It is thus as One who dwells in the fire, who is 
a fire, that God reveals Himself at the opening of 
this new redemption period. With Abraham and 
the patriarch* :.; we have said ; there had been little 
teach:::. ;."; rat sin or redemption : the nearness and 
friendship :: God had been revej Led. Now the law 
will be given 3 sin will be made manifest, the dis- 
tance from God will be felt, that man, in learning to 
know himself and his sinfulness, may learn to know 
and long for God to make him holy. In all God's 

I : :ion of Himself we shall find the combination 
of the two elements, the oj h: other 

attracting. In His house He will dwell in the 
midst :: Israel and vet it will be in the awful un- 
approachable solitude and darkness of the he 
of all within the veil. He will come near to them, 
and yet keep them at a distance. As we study the 



40 HOLY IN CHRIST. 

Holiness of God, we shall see in increasing clearness 
how, like fire, it repels and attracts, how it combines 
into one His infinite distance and His infinite nearness. 

3. But the distance will be that which comes out 
first and most strongly. This we see in Moses : he hid 
his face, for He feared to look upon God. The first 
impression which God's Holiness produces is that of 
fear and awe. Until man, both as a creature and a 
sinner, learns how high God is above him, how 
different and distant he is from God, the Holiness 
of God will have little real value or attraction. 
Moses hiding his face shows us the effect of the 
drawing nigh of the Holy One, and the path to His 
further revelation. 

How distinctly this comes out in God's own 
words : ' Draw not nigh hither ; put off thy shoes 
from off thy feet.' Yes, God had drawn nigh, but 
Moses may not. God comes near : man must stand 
back. In the same breath God says, Draw nigh, 
and, Draw not nigh. There can be no knowledge 
of God or nearness to Him, where we have not first 
heard His, Draw not nigh. The sense of sin, of 
unfitness for God's presence, is the groundwork of 
true knowledge or worship of Him as the Holy One. 
( Put off thy shoes from off thy feet.' The shoes 
axe the means of intercourse with the world, the 
aids through which the flesh or nature does its will, 
moves about and does its work. In standing upon 
holy ground, all this must be put away. It is with 
naked feet, naked and stript of every covering, chat 
man must bow before a holy God Our utter un- 



HOLINESS AND REVELATION. 41 

fitness to draw nigh or have any dealings with the 
Holy One, is the very first lesson we have to learn, 
if ever we are to participate in His Holiness. That 
Put off ! must exercise its condemning power through 
our whole being, until we come to realize the full 
extent of its meaning in the great, ' Put off the old 
man ; put on the Lord Jesus/ and what ' the putting 
off of the body of the flesh, in the circumcision of 
Christ/ is. Yes, all that is of nature and the flesh, all 
that is of our own doing or willing or working — our 
very life, must be put off and given unto the death, if 
God, as the Holy One, is to make Himself known to us. 
We have seen before that Holiness is more than 
goodness or freedom from sin : even unfallen nature 
is not holy. Holiness is that awful glory by which 
Divinity is separated from all that is created. 
Therefore even the seraphs veil their faces with 
their wings when they sing the Thrice Holy. But 
oh ! when the distance and the difference is not that 
of the creature only, but of the sinner, who can ex- 
press, who can realize, the humiliation, the fear, the 
shame with which we ought to bow before the voice 
of the Holy One ? Alas ! this is one of the most 
terrible effects of sin, that it blinds us. We know 
not how unholy, how abominable, sin and the sin- 
ful nature are in God's sight. We have lost the 
power of recognising the Holiness of God : heathen 
philosophy had not even the idea of using the word 
as expressive of the moral character of its gods. 
In losing the light of the glory of God, we have 
lost the power of knowing what sin is. And now 



42 HOLY IN CHRIST. 

God's first work in drawing nigh to us is to make 
us feel that we may not draw nigh as we are ; that 
there will have to be a very real and a very solemn 
putting off, and even giving up to the death, of all 
that appears most lawful and most needful. Not 
only our shoes are soiled with contact with this 
unholy earth ; even our face must be covered and 
our eyes closed, in token that the eyes of our heart, 
all our human wisdom and understanding, are in- 
capable of beholding the Holy One. The first 
lesson in the school of personal holiness is, to fear 
and hide our face before the Holiness of God. ' Thus 
saith the High and Lofty One, whose name is holy, 
I dwell in the High and Holy Place, and with him 
that is of a contrite and humble spirit.' Con- 
trition, brokenness of spirit, fear and trembling are 
God's first demand of those who would see His 
Holiness. 

Moses was to be the first preacher of the Holi- 
ness of God. Of the full communication of God's 
Holiness to us in Christ, His first revelation to 
Moses was the type and the pledge. From Moses' 
lips the people of Israel, from his pen the Church of 
Christ, was to receive the message, ' Be holy : I am 
holy : I make holy/ His preparation for being the 
messenger of the Holy One was here, where he hid 
liis face, because he was afraid to look upon God. 
It is with the face in the dust, it is not only in the 
putting off of the shoes, but all that has been in 
contact with the world and self and sin, that the 
soul draws nigh to the fire ? in which God dwells, 



HOLINESS AND REVELATION. 43 

and which burns, but does not consume. Oh that 
every believer, who seeks to witness for God as the 
Holy One, might thus learn how the fulfilment of 
the type of the Burning Bush is the Crucified 
Christ, and how as we die with Him we receive 
that Baptism of Fire, which reveals in each of us 
what it means : the Holy One dwelling in a 
Burning Bush. Only so can we learn what it is to 
be holy, as He is holy. 

Be ye holy, for I am holy. 

Most Holy God ! I have seen Thee, who dwellest 
in the fire. I have heard Thy voice, Draw not 
nigh hither ; put thy shoes off from thy feet. And 
my soul has feared to look upon God, the Holy 
One. 

And yet, my God ! I must see Thee. Thou 
didst create me for Thy likeness. Thou hast taught 
that this likeness is Thy Holiness : ' Be holy, as I 
am holy/ my God ! how shall I know to be holy, 
unless I may see Thee, the Holy One ? To be holy, 
I must look upon God. 

I bless Thee for the revelation of Thyself in the 
flames of the thorn-bush, in the fire of the accursed 
tree. I bow in amazement and deep abasement at 
the great sight : Thy Son in the weakness of His 
human nature, in the fire, burning but not con- 
sumed. my God ! in fear and trembling I have 
yielded myself as a sinner to die like Him. Oh, let 
the fire consume all that is unholy in me ! Let me 



44 HOLY IN CHEIST. 

too know Thee as the God that dwelleth in the fire 
to melt down and purge out and destroy what ia 
not of Thee, to save and take up into Thine own 
Holiness what is Thine own. 

Holy Lord God ! I bow in the dust before 
this great mystery. Eeveal to me Thy Holiness, 
that I too may be its witness and its messenger on 
earth. Amen. 



NOTE. 

The connection between the fear of God and holiness is 
most intimate. There are some who seek most earnestly 
for holiness, and yet . never exhibit it in a light that 
will attract the world or even believers, because this 
element is wanting. It is the fear of the Lord that 
works that meekness and gentleness, that deliverance 
from self-confidence and self-consciousness, which form the 
true groundwork of a saintly character. The passages of 
God's Word in which the two words are linked together 
are well worthy of a careful study. ' Who is like unto 
Thee, glorious in holiness, fearful in praises V ' In Thy 
fear will I worship towards Thy holy temple.' ' O fear 
the Lord, ye His holy ones.' ' worship the Lord in 
the beauty of holiness ; fear before Him, all the earth.' 
6 Let them praise Thy great and terrible name ; holy is He.' 
' The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom ; and 
the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.' ' The 
Lord of hosts, Him shall ye sanctify ; let Him be your 
featy and let Him be your dread.' ' Perfecting holiness in 
the fear of the Lord.' * Like as He which called you is 
holy, be ye yourselves also holy ; and if ye call on Him 
as father, pass the time of your sojourning in fear. ,' And 
so on through the whole of Scripture, from the Song oi 



HOLINESS AND REVELATION. 45 

Moses on to the Song of the Lamb : l Who shall not 
fear Thee, Lord ! and glorify Thy name, for Thou only 
art holy J If we yield ourselves to the impression of such 
passages, we shall feel more deeply that the fear of God, 
the tender fear of in any way offending Him, the fear 
especially of entering into His holy presence with what is 
human and carnal, with aught of our own wisdom and 
effort, is of the very essence of the holiness we are to 
follow after. It is this fear of God will make us, like 
Moses, fall down and hide our face in God's presence, 
and wait for His own Holy Spirit to open in us the eyes, 
and breathe in us the thoughts and the worship, with 
which we draw nigh to Him, the Holy One. It is in 
this holy fear that that stillness of soul is wrought which 
leads it to rest in God, and opens the way for what we 
saw in Paradise to be the secret of holiness : God keeping 
His Sabbath, and sanctifying the soul in which He rests. 

7. Holiness as the fire of God. Praise God that there is a Power that can 
consume the vile and the dross, a Power that will not leave it undisturbed. 
* The bush burning but not consumed ' is not only the motto of the Church in 
time of persecution ; it is the watchword of every soul in God's sanctifying 
work. 

2. There is a new Theology, which only speaks of the love of God as seen in 
the cross. It sees not the glory of His Righteousness, and His righteous judg- 
ment. This is not the God of Scripture. 'Our God is a consuming fire,' is 
New Testament Theology. To 'offer service with reverence and awe/ is New 
Testament religion. In Holiness, Judgment and Mercy meet. 

3. Holiness as the fear of God. Hiding the face before God for fear, not 
daring to look or speak,— this is the beginning of rest in God. It is not yet 
the true rest, but on the way to it. May God give us a deep fear of whatever 
could grieve or anger Him. May we have a deep fear of ourselves, and all that 
is of the old, the condemned nature, lest it rise again. ' The spirit of the fear 
of the Lord ' is the first manifestation of the spirit of holiness, and prepares 
the way for the joy of holiness. ■ Walking in the fear of the Lord, and in the 
comfort of the Holy Ghost ;' these are the two sides of the Christian life. 

4. The Holiness of God was revealed to Moses that he might be its mes- 
senger. The Church needs nothing so much to-day as men and women wht 
can testify for the Holiness of God. Will you be one ? 



46 HOLY IN CHRIST. 



Fifth Day. 
HOLY IN CHEIST. 

holiness anU SfteUempttott 

'Sanctify unto me all the first-born.'— Ex. xiii. 2. 

'All the first-born are mine ; for on the day I smote all the 
first-born in the land of Egypt / sanctified unto me all the first- 
born in Israel : mine they shall be : I am the Lord.' — Num. iii. 
13, viii. 17. 

' For I am the Lord your God that bring eth you up out of the 
land of Egypt to be your God : ye shall therefore be holy, for I 
am/io/i/.' — Lev. xi. 45. 

6 1 have redeemed thee ; thou art mine.' — Isa. xliii. 1. 

AT Horeb we saw how the first mention of the 
word holy in the history of fallen man was 
connected with the inauguration of a new period in 
the revelation of God, that of Eedemption. In the 
passover we have the first manifestation of what 
Eedemption is ; and here the more frequent use of 
the word holy begins. In the feast of unleavened 
bread we have the symbol of the putting off of the 
old and the putting on of the new, to which re- 
demption through blood is to lead. Of the seven 
days we read : ' In the first day there shall be an 
holy convocation, and in the seventh day there shall 



HOLINESS AND REDEMPTION. 47 

be an holy convocation ; ' the meeting of the re- 
deemed people to commemorate its deliverance is a 
holy gathering; they meet under the covering of 
their Bedeerner, the Holy One. As soon as the 
pjople had been redeemed from Egypt, God's very 
tirst word to them was, t Sanctify — make holy 
unto me all the first-born: it is mine.' (See Ex. 
xiii. 2.) The word reveals how proprietorship is 
one of the central thoughts both in redemption and 
in sanctification, the link that binds them together. 
And though the word is here only used of the first- 
born, they are regarded as the type of the whole 
people. We know how all growth and organization 
commence from a centre, around which in ever- 
widening circles the life of the organism spreads. 
If holiness in the human race is to be true and real, 
free as that of God, it must be the result of a self- 
appropriating development. And so the first-born 
are sanctified, and afterwards the priests in their 
place, as the type of what the whole people is to be 
as God's first-born among the nations, His peculiar 
treasure, ' an holy nation.' This idea of proprietor- 
ship as related to redemption and sanctification 
comes out with especial clearness when God speaks 
of the exchange of the priests for the first-born 
(Num. iii. 12, 13, viii. 16, 17): 'The Levites are 
loholly given unto me ; instead of the first-born have 
I taken them unto me; for all the first-born are 
mine ; in the day that I smote every first-born in 
the land of Egypt / sanctified them for myself J 
Let us try and realize the relation existing 



48 HOLY IN CHRIST. 

between redemption and holiness. In Paradise we 
saw what God's sanctifying the seventh day was : 
He took possession of it, He blessed it, He rested in 
it and refreshed Himself. Where God enters and 
rests, there is holiness : the more perfectly the 
object is fitted for Him to enter and dwell, the 
more perfect the holiness. The seventh day was 
sanctified as the period for man's sanctification. 
At the very first step God took to lead him to His 
Holiness — the command not to eat of the tree — 
man fell. God did not give up His plan, but had 
now to pursue a different and slower path. After 
twenty-five centuries' slow but needful preparation, 
He now reveals Himself as the Eedeemer. A people 
whom He had chosen and formed for Himself He 
gives up to oppression and slavery, that their hearts 
may be prepared to long for and welcome a Deli- 
verer. In a series of mighty wonders He proves 
Himself the Conqueror of their enemies, and then, 
in the blood of the Paschal Lamb on their doors, 
teaches them what redemption is, not only from 
an unjust oppressor here on earth, but from the 
righteous judgment their sins had deserved. The 
Passover is to be to them the transition from the 
seen and temporal to the unseen and spiritual, 
revealing God not only as the Mighty but as the 
Holy One, freeing them not only from the house 
of bondage but the Destroying Angel. 

And having thus redeemed them, He tells them 
that they are now His own. During their stay at Sinai 
and in the wilderness, the thought is continually 



HOLINESS AND REDEMPTION. 49 

pressed upon them that they are now the Lord's 
people, whom He has made His own by the strength 
of His arm, that He may make them holy for Him- 
self, even as He is holy. The purpose of redemp- 
tion is Possession, and the purpose of Possession is 
likeness to Him who is Eedeemer and Owner, is 
Holiness. 

In regard to this Holiness, and the way it is to 
be attained as the result of redemption, there is 
more than one lesson the sanctifying of the first- 
born will teach us. 

First of all, we want to realize how inseparable 
redemption and holiness are. Xeither can exist 
without the other. Only redemption leads to holiness. 
If I am seeking holiness, I must abide in the clear 
and full experience of being a redeemed one, and as 
such of being owned and possessed by God. Eedemp- 
tion is too often looked at from its negative side 
as deliverance from : its real glory is the positive 
element of being redeemed unto Himself. Full 
possession of a house means occupation : if I own a 
house without occupying it, it may be the home of 
all that is foul and evil. God has redeemed me 
. and made me His own with the view of getting 
complete possession of me. He says of my soul, 
1 It is mine/ and seeks to have His right of owner- 
ship acknowledged and made fully manifest. That 
will be perfect holiness, where God has entered in 
and taken complete and entire possession. 1 It is 
redemption gives God His right and power over me ; 

1 See Note A on Holiness as Proprietorship. 
D 



50 HOLY IN CHKIST. 

it is redemption sets me free for God now to possess 
and bless : it is redemption realized and filling my 
soul, that will bring me the assurance and experi- 
ence of all His power will work in me. In God, 
redemption and sanctification are one : the more re- 
demption as a Divine reality possesses me, the closer 
am I linked to the Eedeemer-God, the Holy One. 

And just so, only holiness brings the assurance and 
enjoyment of redemption. If I am seeking to hold 
fast redemption on lower ground, I may be deceived. 
If I have become unwatchful or careless, I should 
tremble at the very idea of trusting in redemption 
apart from holiness as its object. To Israel God 
spake, ' I brought you up out of the land of Egypt : 
therefore ye shall be holy, for I am holy. 5 It is God 
the Eedeemer who made us His own, who calls us 
too to be holy : let Holiness be to us the most 
essential, the most precious part of redemption : the 
yielding of ourselves to Him who has taken us as 
His own, and has undertaken to make us His own 
entirely. 

A second lesson suggested is the connection 
between God's and man's working in sanctification. 
To Moses the Lord speaks, ' Sanctify unto me all the 
.first-born.' He afterwards says, ' / sanctified all 
the first-born for myself.' What God does He does 
to be carried out and appropriated through us. 
When He tells us that we are made holy in Christ 
Jesus, that we are His holy ones, He speaks not 
only of His purpose, but of what He has really 
done ; we have been sanctified in the one offering 



HOLINESS AND REDEMPTION. 51 

of Christ, and in our being created anew in Him. 
But this work has a human side. To us comes 
the call to be holy, to follow after holiness, to per- 
fect holiness. God has made us His own, and 
allows us to say that we are His : but He waits for 
us now to yield Him an enlarged entrance into the 
secret places of our inner being, for Him to fill it all 
with His fulness. Holiness is not something we 
bring to God or do for Him. Holiness is what there 
is of God in us. God has made us His own in 
redemption, that He might make Himself our own in 
sanctification. And our work in becoming holy is 
the bringing our whole life, and every part of it, into 
subjection to the rule of this holy God, putting every 
member and every power upon His altar. 

And this teaches us the answer to the question 
as to the connection between the sudden and the 
gradual in sanctification : between its being a thing 
once for all complete, and yet imperfect and needing 
to be perfected. What God sanctifies is holy with 
a Divine and perfect holiness as His gift : man has 
to sanctify by acknowledging and maintaining and 
carrying out that holiness in relation to what God 
has made holy. God sanctified the Sabbath day : 
man has to sanctify it, that is, to keep it holy. 
G od sanctified the first-born as His own : Israel had 
to sanctify them, to treat them and give them up to 
God as holy. God is holy : we are to sanctify Him 
in acknowledging: and adoring and honouring that 
holiness. God has sanctified His great name, His 
name is Holy : we sanctify or hallow that name as 



52 HOLY IN CHRIST. 

we fear and trust and use it as the revelation of 
His Holiness. God sanctified Christ : Christ sancti- 
fied Himself, manifesting in His personal will and 
action perfect conformity to the Holiness with which 
God had made Him holy. God has sanctified us in 
Christ Jesus: we are to be holy by yielding ourselves 
to the power of that holiness, by acting it out, and 
manifesting it in all our life and walk. The objec- 
tive Divine gift, bestowed once for all and com- 
pletely, must be appropriated as a subjective personal 
possession ; we must cleanse ourselves, perfecting 
holiness. Eedeemed unto holiness : as the two 
thoughts are linked in the mind and work of God, 
they must be linked in our heart and life. 

When Isaiah announced the second, the true re- 
demption, it was given to him, even more clearly 
and fully than to Moses, to reveal the name of God 
as ' The Eedeemer, the Holy One of Israel.' The 
more we study this name, and hallow it, and wor- 
ship God by it, the more inseparably will the words 
become connected, and we shall see how, as the 
Eedeemer is the Holy One, the redeemed are holy 
ones too. Isaiah says of ( the way of holiness/ the 
' redeemed shall walk therein/ The redemption that 
comes out from the Holiness of God must lead up into 
it too. We shall understand that to be redeemed in 
Christ is to be holy in Christ, and the call of our 
redeeming God will acquire new meaning : ' I am 
holy : be ye holy.' 

Be ye holy, for I am holy. 



HOLINESS AND REDEMPTION. 53 

Lord God ! the Holy One of Israel and her 
Redeemer ! I worship before Thee in deep humility. 
I confess with shame that I so long sought Thee 
more as the Redeemer than as the Holy One. I 
knew not that it was as the Holy One Thou hadst 
redeemed, that redemption w T as the outcome and the 
fruit of Thy Holiness ; that a participation in Thy 
Holiness was its one purpose and its highest beauty. 
I only thought of being redeemed from bondage and 
death : like Israel, I understood not that without 
fellowship and conformity to Thyself redemption 
would lose its value. 

Most holy God ! I praise Thee for the patience 
with which Thou bearest with the selfishness and 
the slowness of Thy redeemed ones. I praise Thee 
for the teaching of the Spirit of Thy Holiness, 
leading Thy saints, and me too, to see how it is Thy 
Holiness, and the call to become partaker of it, that 
gives redemption its value ; how it is for Thyself as 
the Holy One, to be Thine own, possessed and 
sanctified of Thee, that we are redeemed. 

my God ! with a love and a joy and a thanks- 
giving that cannot be uttered, I praise Thee for 
Christ, who has been made unto us of Thee sanctifi- 
cation and redemption. In Him Thou art my 
Redeemer, my Holy One. In Him I am Thy re- 
deemed, Thy holy one. God ! in speechless 
adoration I fall down to worship the love that 
passeth knowledge, that hath done this for us, 
and to believe that in one who is now before 
Thee, holy in Christ, Thou wilt -fulfil all Thy 



54 HOLY IN CHRIST. 

glorious purposes according to the greatness of Thy 
power. Amen. 

1. 'Redemption through His blood.' The blood we meet at the threshold of 
the pathway of Holiness. For it is the blood of the sacrifice which the fire 
of God consumed, and yet could not consume. That blood has such power 
of holiness in it, that we read, 'Sanctified by His own blood.' Always think 
of holiness, or pray for it, as one redeemed by blood. Live under the cover- 
ing of the blood in its daily cleansing power. 

2. It is only as we know the Holiness of God as Fire, and bow before His 
righteous judgment, that we can appreciate the preciousness of the blood or 
the reality of the redemption. As long as we only think of the hue of God as 
goodness, we may aim at being good ; faith in God who redeems will waken in 
us the need and the joy of being holy in Christ. 

3. Have you understood the right of property God has in what He has re- 
deemed? Have you heard a voice say, Mine. Thou art Mine. Ask God 
very humbly to speak it to you. Listen very gently for it. 

4. The holiness of the creature has its origin in the Divine will, in the Divine 
election, redemption, and possession. Give yourself up to this will of God and 
rejoice in it. 

5. As God created, so He redeemed, to sanctify. Have great faith in Him 
for this. 

6. Let God have the entire possession and disposal of you. Holiness m 
His; our holiness is to let Him t the Holy One, be aJL 



HOLINESS AND GLOKY. 65 



Sixth Day. 
HOLY IN CHEIST. 

holiness anls ffilorg- 

• Who is like unto Thee, Lord ! among the gods ? 

Who is like unto Thee, glorious in holiness. 

Fearful in praises, doing wonders ? 

Thou in Thy mercy hast led Thy people which Thou hast 
redeemed : 

Thou hast guided them in Thy strength to the hahitation of 
Thy holiness. . . 

The holy place, Lord, which Thy hands have established.' 

—Ex. xv. 11-17. 

IN these words we have another step in advance 
in the revelation of Holiness. We have here 
for the first time Holiness predicated of God Him- 
self. He is glorious in holiness : and it is to the 
dwelling-place of His Holiness that He is guiding 
His people. 

Let us first note the expression used here : 
glorious in holiness. Throughout Scripture we 
find the glory and the holiness of God mentioned 
together. In Ex. xxix. 43 we read, 'And the 
tent shall be made holy by my glory! that glory of 
the Lord of which we afterwards read that it filled 



56 HOLY IN CHRIST. 

the housa The glory of an object, of a thing or 
person, is its intrinsic worth or excellence : to 
glorify is to remove everything that could hinder 
the full revelation of that excellence. In the Holi- 
ness of God His glory is hidden ; in the glory of 
God His Holiness is manifested : His glory, the 
revelation of Himself as the Holy One, would make 
the house holy. In the same way the two are 
connected in Lev. x. 3, ' I will be sanctified in them 
that come nigh unto me, and before all the people 
I will be glorified' The acknowledgment of His 
Holiness in the priests would be the manifestation 
of His glory to the people. So, too, in the song of 
the Seraphim (Isa. vi. 3), ( Holy, holy, holy, Lord 
God of Hosts : the whole earth is full of His 
glory! God is He who dwelleth in a light that is 
unapproachable, whom no man hath seen or can 
see : it is the light of the knowledge of the glory 
of God that He gives into our hearts. The glory 
is that which can be seen and known of the 
invisible and unapproachable light : that light 
itself, and the glorious fire of which that light is 
the shining out, that light is the Holiness of 
God. Holiness is not so much an attribute of 
God, as the comprehensive summary of all His 
perfections. 

It is on the shore of the Eed Sea that Israel 
thus praises God : ' Who is like unto Thee, 
Lord ! "Who is like unto Thee, glorious in holi- 
ness ? ' He is the' Incomparable One, there is none 
like Him. And wherein has He proved this, and 



HOLINESS AND GLORY. 57 

revealed the glory of His Holiness ? With Moses 
in Horeb we saw God's glory in the fire, in its 
double aspect of salvation and destruction : con- 
suming what could not be purified, purifying what 
was not consumed. We see it here too in the song 
of Moses : Israel sings of judgment and of mercy. 
The pillar of fire and of the cloud came between 
the camp of the Egyptians and the camp of Israel : 
it was a cloud and darkness to those, but it gave 
light by night to these. The two thoughts run 
through the whole song. But in the two verses 
that follow the ascription of holiness, we find the 
sum of the whole. - Thou stretchedst out Thy right 
hand : the earth swallowed them.' ' The Lord looked 
forth upon the host of the Egyptians from the pillar 
of fire and discomfited them/ This is the glory of 
Holiness as judgment and destruction of the enemy. 

'Thou in Thy mercy hast led Thy people which 
thou hast redeemed. Thou hast guided them in 
Thy strength to the habitation of Thy Holiness/ 
This is the glory of Holiness in mercy and redemp- 
tion — a Holiness that not only delivers but guides 
to the habitation of holiness, where the Holy One 
is to dwell with and in His people. In the inspira- 
tion of the hour of triumph it is thus early revealed 
that the great object and fruit of redemption, as 
wrought out by the Holy One, is to be His indwell- 
ing : with nothing short of this can the Holy One 
rest content, or the full glory of His Holiness be 
made manifest. 

And now, observe further, how, as it is in the 



58 HOLY IN CHRIST. 

redemption of His people that God's Holiness is 
revealed, so it is in the song of redemption that 
the personal ascription of Holiness to God is found. 
We know how in Scripture, after some striking 
special interposition of God as Kedeenier, the 
special influence of the Spirit is manifested in some 
song of praise. It is remarkable how it is in these 
outbursts of holy enthusiasm, God is praised as the 
Holy One. See it in the song of Hannah (1 Sam. 
ii. 2), ' There is none holy as the Lord/ The 
language of the Seraphim (Isa. vi.) is that of a song 
of adoration. In the great day of Israel's deliver- 
ance the song will be, l The Lord Jehovah is become 
my strength and song. Sing unto the Lord, for 
He hath done excellent things. Cry aloud and 
shout, thou inhabitant of Zion, for great is the Holy 
One of Israel in the midst of thee.' Mary sings, 
1 For He that is mighty hath done great things to 
me : and holy is His name.' 

The book of Eevelation reveals the living 
creatures giving glory and honour and thanks to 
Him that sitteth on the throne ; i and they have 
no rest day and night, saying, Holy, holy, holy is 
the Lord God, the Almighty, which was, and which 
is, and which is to come.' And when the song of 
Moses and of the Lamb is sung by the sea of glass, 
it will still be, ' Who shall not fear, Lord, and 
glorify Thy name ? for Thou only art holy.' It is 
in the moments of highest inspiration, under the 
fullest manifestation of God's redeeming power, 
that His servants speak of His Holiness. In Ps. 



HOLINESS AND GLORY. 59 

xcvii. we read, c Eejoice in the Lord, ye righteous, 
and give thanks at the remembrance of His Holi- 
ness,' And in Ps. xcix., which has, with its thrice 
repeated holy, been called the echo on earth of the 
Thrice Holy of heaven, we sing — 

Let them praise Thy great and teirible name. 
Holy is He. 

Exalt ye the Lord our God, . 
and worship at His footstool : 
Holy is He. 

Exalt ye the Lord our God, 
and worship at His holy hill : 
Eor the Lord our God is holy. 

It is only under the influence of high spiritual 
elevation and joy that God's holiness can be fully 
apprehended or rightly worshipped. The sentiment 
that becomes us as we worship the Holy One, that 
fits us for knowing and worshipping Him aright, 
is the spirit of praise that sings and shouts for joy 
in the experience of His full salvation. 

But is not this at variance with the lesson we 
learnt at Horeb, when God . spake, ' Draw not nigh 
hither : put off thy shoes/ and where Moses feared 
and hid his face ? And is not this in very deed 
the posture that becomes us as creatures and 
sinners ? It is indeed : and yet the two sentiments 
are not at variance : rather they are indispensable 
to each other ; the fear is the preparation for the 
praise and the glory. Or is it not that same Mosea 



60 HOLY IN CHRIST. 

who hid his face and feared to look upon God, who 
afterwards beheld His glory until his own face shone 
with a brightness that men could not bear to look 
upon ? And is not the song that sings here of 
God as glorious in holiness, also the song of Moses 
who feared and hid his face ? Have we not seen 
in the fire, and in God, and specially in His Holi- 
ness, the twofold aspect ; consuming and purifying, 
repelling and attracting, judging and saving, with 
the latter in each case not only the accompaniment 
but the result of the former ? And so we shall find 
that the deeper the humbling and the fear in God's 
Holy Fresence, and the more real and complete the 
putting off of all that is of self and of nature, even 
to the putting off, the complete death of the old 
man and his will, the more heartily we give up to 
be consumed what is sinful, the deeper and fuller 
will be the praise and joy with which we daily sing 
our song of redemption. ' Who is like unto Thee, 
Lord, glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing 
wonders ? 

' Glorious in holiness ; fearful in praises : ' the 
song itself harmonizes the apparently conflicting 
elements. Yes. I will sing of judgment and of 
mercy. I will rejoice with trembling as I praise 
the Holy One. As I look upon the two sides of 
His Holiness, as revealed to the Egyptians and 
the Israelites, I remember that what was there 
separated is in me united. By nature I am the 
Egyptian, an enemy doomed to destruction ; by 
grace, an Israelite chosen for redemption. In me 



HOLINESS AND GLORY. 61 

the fire must consume and destroy ; only as judg- 
ment does its work, can mercy fully save. It is 
only as I tremble before the Searching Light and the 
Burning Fire and the Consuming Heat of the Holy 
One, as I yield the Egyptian nature to be judged 
and condemned and slain, that the Israelite will 
be redeemed to know aright his God as the God 
of salvation, and to rejoice in Him. 

Blessed be God ! the judgment is past. In 
Christ, the burning bush, the fire of the Divine 
Holiness did its double work : in Him sin was con- 
demned in the flesh ; in Him we are free. In 
giving up His will to the death, and doing God's 
will, Christ sanctified Himself; and in that will we 
are sanctified too. His crucifixion, with its judg- 
ment of the flesh, His death, with its entire putting 
off of what is of nature, is not only for us, but is 
really ours ; a life and a power working within us 
by His Spirit. Day by day we abide in Him. 
Tremblingly but rejoicingly we take our stand in 
Him, for the Power of Holiness as Judgment to 
vindicate within us its fierce vengeance against what 
is sin and flesh, and so to let the Power of Holiness 
as Eedemption accomplish that glorious work that 
makes us give thanks at the remembrance of His 
Holiness. And so the shout of Salvation rings 
ever deeper and truer and louder through our life, 
■' Who is like unto Thee, Lord, among the gods ? 
Who is like unto Thee, glorious in holiness, fearful 
in praises, doing wonders ? ' 

Be ye holy, as I am holy. 



62 HOLY IN CHRIST. 

{ Wlw is like unto Thee, Lord ! glorious in 
holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders ? ' With 
my whole heart would I join in this song of 
redemption, and rejoice in Thee as the God of iny 
salvation. 

my God ! let Thy Spirit, from whom these 
words of holy joy and triumph came, so reveal within 
me the great redemption as a personal experience, 
that my whole life may be one song of trembling 
and adoring wonder. 

1 beseech Thee especially, let my whole heart 
be filled with Thyself, glorious in holiness, fearful 
in praises, who alone doest wonders. Let the fear 
of Thy Holiness make me tremble at all there is in 
me of self and flesh, and lead me in my worship to 
deny and crucify my own wisdom, that the Spirit 
of Thy Holiness may breathe in me. Let the fear 
of the Lord give its deep undertone to all my 
coming in and going out in Thy Holy Presence. 
Prepare me thus for giving praise without ceasing 
at the remembrance of Thy holiness. my God I 
I would rejoice in Thee as my Eedeemer, my Holy 
One, with a joy unspeakable and full of glory. A§ 
my Eedeemer, Thou makest me holy. With my 
whole heart do I trust Thee to do it, to sanctify 
me wholly. I do believe in Thy promise, I do 
believe in Thyself, and believing I receive Thee, the 
Holy One, my Eedeemer. 

Who is like unto Thee, O Lord ! glorious in 
holiness, fearful in, praises^ doing wonders ? 



HOLINESS AND GLORY. 63 



1. God's Holiness as Glory. God is glorified in the holiness of His people. 
True holiness always gives glory to God alone. Live to the glory of God : that 
is holiness. Live holily : that will glorify Gcd. To lose sight of seif, and 
seek only God's glory, is holiness. 

2. Our Holiness as Praise. Praise gives glory to God, and is thus an 
element of holiness. 'Thou art holy, Thou that inhabitest the praises of 
Israel.' 

3. God's Holiness, His holy redeeming love, is cause of unceasing joy ard 
praise. Praise God every day for it. But you cannot do this unless you live 
in it. May God's holiness become so glorious to us, as we understand that 
whatever we see of His glory is just the outshining of His holiness, that we 
cannot help rejoicing in it, and in Him the Holy One. 

4. The spirit of the fear of the Lord and the spirit of praise may, at first 
sight, appear to be at variance. But it is not so. The humility that fears the 
Holy One will also praise Him : ' Ye that fear the Lord: praise the Lord.' 
The lower we be in the fear of God, and the fear of self, the more surely will 
He lift us up in due time to praise Him, 



04 HOLY IN CHRIST. 



Seventh Day. 



HOLY IN CHKIST. 

holiness anK ©betitaxce* 

* Ye have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bare yon 
on eagles' wings, and brought yon unto myself. Now therefore, 
if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, ye shall 
be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people : ye shall be 
unto me an holy nation.' — Ex. xix. 4-6. 

ISEAEL has reached Horeb. The law is to be 
given and the covenant made. Here are God's 
first words to the people ; He speaks of redemption 
and its blessing, fellowship with Himself : ' Ye have 
seen how I brought you unto myself/ He speaks 
of holiness as His purpose in redemption. And as 
the link between the two He places obedience : ' If 
ye will indeed obey my voice, ye shall be unto me 
an holy nation/ God's will is the expression of 
His holiness ; as we do His will, we come into 
contact with His holiness. The link between 
Eedemption and Holiness is Obedience. 

This takes us back to what we saw in Paradise. 
God sanctified the seventh day as the time for 
sanctifying man. And what was the first thing 



HOLINESS AND OBEDIENCE. 65 

He did with this purpose ? He gave him a com- 
mandment. Obedience to that commandment would 
have opened the door, would have been the entrance 
into the Holiness of God. Holiness is a moral attri- 
bute ; and moral is that which a free will chooses and 
determines for itself. What God creates and gives 
is only naturally good ; what man wills to have of 
God and His will, and really appropriates, has moral 
worth, and leads to holiness. In creation God 
manifested His wise and good will. His holy will 
He speaks in His commands. As that holy will 
enters man's will, as man's will accepts and unites 
itself with God's will, he becomes holy. After 
creation, in the seventh day God took man up into 
His work of sanctification to make him holy. 
Obedience is the path to holiness, because it is the 
path to union with God's holy will ; with man un- 
fallen, as with fallen man, in redemption here and 
in glory above, in all the holy angels, in Christ the 
Holy One of God Himself, obedience is the path 
of holiness. It is not itself holiness : but as the 
will opens itself to accept and to do the will of 
God, God communicates Himself and His Holiness. 
To obey His voice is to follow Him as He leads in 
the way to the full revelation and communication 
of Himself and His blessed nature as the Holy 
One. 

Obedience. Not knowledge of the will of God, 
not even approval, not even the will to do it, but 
the doing of it. Knowledge, and approval, and will 
must lead to action ; the will of God must be done. 

E 



66 HOLY IN CHRIST. 

c If ye indeed obey my voice, ye shall be unto me 
an holy nation/ It is not faith, and not worship, 
and not profession, that God here asks in the first 
place from His people when He speaks of holiness ; 
it is obedience. God's will must be done on earth, 
as in heaven. ' Eemember and do all my com- 
mandments, that ye may be holy to your God' 
(Num. xv. 40). ' Sanctify yourselves therefore, and 
be ye holy ; and ye shall keep my statutes and do 
them. I am the Lord which sanctify you' (Lev. 
xx. 7, 8). ' Therefore shall ye keep my command- 
ments and do them : I am the Lord : I will be 
hallowed among the children of Israel : I am the 
Lord which hallow you, that brought you up out of 
the land of Egypt' (xxii. 21, 33). 

A moment's reflection will make the reason of 
this clear to us. It is in a man's work that he 
manifests what he is. I may know what is good, 
and yet not approve it. I may approve, and yet 
not will it. I may in a certain sense will it, and 
yet be wanting in the energy, or the self-sacrifice, or 
the power that will rouse and do the thing. Think- 
ing is easier than willing, and willing is easier than 
doing. God wants His will done. This alone is 
obedience. In this alone it is seen whether the 
whole heart, with all its strength and w T ill, has 
given itself over to the will of God ; whether we 
live it, and are ready at any sacrifice to make it our 
own by doing it. God has no other way for making 
us holy. ' Ye shall keep my statutes and do them : 
I am the Lord which make you holy/ 



HOLINESS AND OBEDIENCE. G7 

To all seekers after holiness this is a lesson of deep 
importance. Obedience is not holiness ; holiness is 
something far higher, something that comes from 
God to us, or rather, something of God coming in 
us. But obedience is indispensable to holiness : it 
cannot exist without it. While, therefore, your 
heart seeks to follow the teaching of God's word, 
and looks in faith to what God has done, as He has 
made you holy in Christ, and to what God is still to 
do through the Spirit of Holiness as He fulfils the 
promise, ' The very God of peace sanctify you 
wholly/ never for one moment forget to be obedient. 
' If ye shall indeed obey my voice, ye shall be an 
holy nation to me/ Begin by doing at once what- 
ever appears right to do. Give up at once what- 
ever conscience tells that you dare not say is 
according to the will of God. Xot only pray for 
light and strength, but act; do what God says. 
• He that doeth the will of God is my brother/ 
Jesus says. To do the Father's will is the meat, 
the strength of every son of God. 

It is nothing less than the surrender to such a 
life of simple and entire obedience that is implied 
in becoming a Christian. There are, alas ! too 
many Christians who, from the want either of 
proper instruction, or of proper attention to the 
teaching of God's word, have never realized the 
place of supreme importance that obedience takes in 
the Christian life. They know not that Christ, and 
redemption, and faith all lead to it, because through 
it alone is the way to the fellowship of the Love, 



68 HOLY IN CHEIST. 

and the Likeness, and the Glory of God. We have 
all, perhaps, suffered from it ourselves : in our 
prayers and efforts after the perfect peace and the 
rest of faith, after the abiding joy and the increasing 
power of the Christian life, there has been a 
secret something hindering the blessing, or causing 
the speedy loss of what had been apprehended. A 
wrong impression as to the absolute necessity of 
obedience was probably the cause. It cannot too 
earnestly be insisted on that the freeness and 
mighty power of grace has this for its object from 
our conversion onwards, the restoring us to the active 
obedience and harmony with God's will from which 
we had fallen through the first sin in Paradise. 
Obedience leads to God and His Holiness. It is in 
obedience that the will is moulded, and the character 
fashioned, and an inner man built up which God 
can clothe and adorn with the beauty of holiness. 

When a Christian discovers that this has been 
the missing link, the cause of failure and dark- 
ness, there is nothing for it but in a grand act of 
surrender deliberately to choose obedience, universal, 
whole-hearted obedience, as the law of his life in 
the power of the Holy Spirit. Let him not fear 
to make his own the words of Israel at Sinai, in 
answer to the message of God we are considering : 
' All that the Lord hath spoken, we will do ; ' ' All 
that the Lord hath said will we do, and be obedient/ 
What the law could not do, in that it was weak 
through the flesh, God hath done by the gift of His 
Son and Spirit. The law-giving of Sinai on tables 



HOLINESS AND OBEDIENCE. 69 

of stone has been succeeded by the law-giving of 
the Spirit on the table of the heart : the Holy 
Spirit is the power of obedience, and is so the 
Spirit of Holiness, who, in obedience, prepares our 
hearts for being the dwelling of the Holy One. 
Let us in this faith yield ourselves to a life of 
obedience : it is the New Testament path to the 
realization of the promise : ' If ye will obey my 
voice indeed, ye shall be unto me an holy nation.' 

We have already seen how holiness in its very 
nature supposes the personal relation to God, His 
personal presence. ' I have brought you unto my- 
self ; if ye obey, ye shall be unto me an holy 
nation.' It is as we understand and hold fast this 
personal element that obedience will become pos- 
sible, and will lead to holiness. Mark well God's 
words : ' If ye will obey my voice, and keep my 
covenant.' The voice is more than a law or a book ; 
it always implies a living person and intercourse 
with him. It is this that is the secret of gospel 
obedience : hearing the voice and following the 
lead of Jesus as a personal friend, a living Saviour. 
It is being led by the Spirit of God, having Him to 
reveal the Presence, and the Will, and the Love of 
the Father, that will work in us that personal 
relation which the New Testament means when it 
speaks of doing everything unto the Lord, as pleas- 
ing God. 

Such obedience is the pathway of holiness. Its 
every act is a link to the living God, a surrender of 
the being for God's will, for God Himself to take 



70 HOLY IN CHKIST. 

possession. In the process of assimilation, slow but 
sure, by which the will of God, as the meat of our 
souls, is taken up into our inmost being, our 
spiritual nature is strengthened, is spiritualized, 
growing up into an holy temple in which God can 
reveal Himself and take up His abode. 

Let every believer study to realize this. When 
God sanctified the seventh day as His period of 
making holy, He taught us that He could not do 
it at once. The revelation and communication of 
holiness must be gradual, as man is prepared to 
receive it. God's sanctifying work with each of us, 
as with the race, needs time. The time it needs 
and seeks is the life of daily, hourly obedience. 
All that is spent in self-will, and not in the living 
relation to the Lord, is lost. But when the heart 
seeks day by day to hearken to the voice and to 
obey it, the Holy One Himself watches over His 
words to fulfil them : ' Ye shall be unto me an holy 
nation.' In a way of which the soul beforehand 
can have but little conception, God will overshadow 
and make His abode in the obedient heart. The 
habit of always listening for the voice and obeying 
it will only be the building of the temple: the 
Living God Himself, the Holy One, will come to 
take up His abode. The glory of the Lord will fill 
the house, and the promise be made true, ' I will 
sanctify it by my glory.' 

'I brought you unto myself ; if ye will obey my 
voice in deed, ye shall be unto me an holy nation. 1 
Seeker after holiness ! God has brought you to 



HOLINESS AND OBEDIENCE. 71 

Himself. And now His voice speaks to you all the 
thoughts of His heart, that as you take them in, 
and make them your own, and make His will your 
own by living and doing it, you may enter into 
the most complete union with Himself, the union 
of will as well as of life, and so become a holy 
people unto Him. Let obedience, the listening to 
and the doing the will of God, be the joy and the 
glory of your life ; it will give you access unto the 
Holiness of God. 

Be holy, as I am holy. 



my God ! Thou hast redeemed me for Thyself, 
that Thou mightest have me wholly as Thine own, 
possessing, filling my inmost being with Thy own 
likeness, Thy perfect will, and the glory of Thy 
Holiness. And Thou seekest to train me, in the 
power of a free and loving will, to take Thy will 
and make it my own, that in the very centre of my 
being I may have Thine own perfection dwelling in 
me. And in Thy words Thou revealest Thy will, 
that as I accept and keep them I may master their 
Divine contents, and will all that Thou wiliest. 

my God ! let me live day by day in such 
fellowship with Thee, that I may indeed in every- 
thing hear Thy voice, the living voice of the living 
God speaking to me. Let the Holy Spirit, the 
Spirit of Thy Holiness, be to me Thy voice guiding 
me in the path of simple, childlike obedience. I 
do bless Thee that I have seen that Christ, in whom 



72 HOLY IN CHRIST. 

I am holy, was the obedient one, that in obedience 
He sanctified Himself to become my sanctification, 
and that abiding in Him, Thy obedient, holy Child, 
is abiding in Thy will as once done by Him, and 
now to be done by me. O my God ! I will indeed 
obey Thy will : make Thou me one of Thy holy 
nation, a peculiar treasure above all people. Amen. 

1. 'He became obedient unto death.' 'Though He was a Son, yet He learned 
obedience by the things which He suffered.' ' I come to do Thy will.' 'In which 
will we are sanctified.' Christ's example teaches us that obedience is the 
only path to the Holiness or the glory of God. Be this your consecration : a 
surrender in everything to seek and do the will of God. 

. 2. We are 'holy in Christ' — in this Christ who did the will of God and was 
obedient to the death. In Him it is we are ; in Him we are holy. His obedi- 
ence is the soil in which we are planted, and must be rooted. 'It is my meat 
to do His will ; ' obedience was the sustenance of His life ; in doing God's will 
He drew down Divine nourishment ; it must be so with us too. 

3. As you study what it is to be and abide in Christ, as you rejoice you are in 
Him, always remember it is Christ who obeyed in whom God has planted you. 

4. If ever you feel perplexed about holiness, just yield yourself again to do 
God's will and go and do it. It is ours to obey, it is God's to sanctify. 

5. Holy in Christ. Christ sanctified Himself by obedience, by doing the 
will of God, and in that will, as done by Him, we have been sanctified. In 
accepting that will as done by Him, in accepting Him, I am holy. In accepting 
that will of God, as to be done by me, I become holy. / am in Him ; in every 
act of living obedience, I enter into living fellowship with Him, and draw the 
power of His life into mine. 

6. Obedience depends upon hearing the voice. Do not imagine you know the 
will of God. Pray and wait for the inward teaching of the Spirit. 



HOLINESS AND INDWELLING. 73 



Eighth Day. 
HOLY IN CHEIST. 

holiness anU InlifoeUitifl* 

•And let them make me a holy place, that I may dwell among 
them.' — Ex. xxv. 8. 

' And the tent shall be sanctified by my glory, and I will dwell 
among the children of Israel, and will be their God.' — Ex. 

xxix. 43, 45. 

THE Presence of God makes holy, even when it 
descends but for a little while, as at Horeb, 
in the burning bush. How much more must that 
Presence make holy the place where it dwells, where 
it fixes its permanent abode ! So much is this the 
case, that the place where God dwells came to be 
called the holy place, f the holy place of the habita- 
tion of the Most High/ All around where God 
dwelt was holy : the holy city, the mountain of 
God's Holiness, His holy house, till we come within 
the veil, to the most holy place, the holy of holies. 
It is as the indwelling God that He sanctifies His 
house, that He reveals Himself as the Holy One in 
Israel, that He makes us holy too. 

Because God is holy, the home in which He 



74 HOLY IN CHRIST. 

dwells is holy too. This is the only attribute of 
God which He can communicate to His house ; but 
this one He can and does communicate. Among men 
there is a very close link between the character of a 
house and its occupants. When there is no obstacle 
to prevent it, the house unintentionally reflects the 
master's likeness. Holiness expresses not so much 
an attribute as the very being of God in His 
infinite perfection, and His house testifies to this 
one truth, that He is holy, that where He dwells 
He must have holiness, that His indwelling makes 
holy. In His first command to His people to build 
Him a holy place, God distinctly said that it was 
that He might dwell among them : the dwelling in 
the house was to be the shadowing forth of His 
dwelling in the midst of His people. The house 
with its holiness thus leads us on to the holiness of 
His dwelling among His redeemed ones. 

The holy place, the habitation of God's Holiness, 
was the centre of all God's work in making Israel 
holy. Everything connected with it was holy. The 
altar, the priests, the sacrifices, the oil, the bread, 
the vessels, all were holy, because they belonged to 
God. From the house there issued the twofold voice 
— God's calls to be holy, God's promise to make holy. 
God's claim was manifested in the demand for 
cleansing, for atonement, for holiness, in all who 
were to draw near, whether as priests or worshippers. 
And God's promise shone forth from His house in 
the provision for making holy, in the sanctifying 
power of the altar, of the blood and the oil. The 



HOLINESS AND INDWELLING. 75 

house embodied the two sides that are united in 
holiness, the repelling and the attracting, the con- 
demning and the saving. Xow by keeping the 
people at a distance, then by inviting and bringing 
them nigh, God's house was the great symbol of 
His own Holiness. He had come nigh even to 
dwell among them ; and yet they might not come 
nigh, they might never enter the secret place of His 
presence. 

All these things are written on our behalf. It 
is as the Indwelling One that God is the sanctifier 
of His people still : the indwelling presence alone 
makes us holy. This comes out with special clear- 
ness if we note how, the nearer the Presence was, 
the greater the degree of holiness. Because God 
dwelt among them, the camp was holy: all 
uncleanness was to be removed from it. But the 
holiness of the court of the tabernacle was greater : 
uncleanness which did not exclude from the camp 
would not be tolerated there. Then the holy 
place was still holier, because still nearer God. 
And the inner sanctuary, where the Presence dwelt 
on the mercy-seat, was the Holiest of All, was most 
holy. And the principle still holds good : holiness 
is measured by nearness to God ; the more of His 
Presence, the more of true holiness ; perfect in- 
dwelling will be perfect holiness. There is none 
holy but the Lord ; there is no holiness but in Him. 
He cannot part with somewhat of His holiness, and 
give it to us apart from Himself ; we have only so 
much of holiness as we have of God Himself. And 



76 HOLY IN CHRIST. 

to have Himself truly and fully, we must have Him 
as the Indwelling One. And His indwelling in a 
house or locality, without life or spirit, is only a 
faint shadow of the true indwelling as the Living 
One, when He enters into and penetrates our very 
being, and fills us with His own life. 

There is no union so intimate, so real, so perfect, 
as that of an indwelling life. Think of the life 
that circulates through a large and fruitful tree. 
How it penetrates and fills every portion ; how 
inseparably it unites the whole as long as it 
really is to exist ! — in wood and leaf, in flower and 
fruit, everywhere the indwelling life flows and 
falls. This life is the life of nature, the life 
of the Spirit of God which dwells in nature. 
It is the same life that animates our bodies, the 
spirit of nature pervading every portion of them 
with the power of sensibility and action. 

Not less intimate, yea, rather far more wonderful 
and real, is the indwelling of the Spirit of the New 
Life, through whom God dwells in the heart of the 
believer. And it is as this indwelling becomes a 
matter of conscious longing and faith, that the soul 
obeys the command, ' Let them make me a holy 
place, that I may dwell among them/ and experiences 
the truth of the promise, ' The tent shall be sanctified 
by my glory, and I will dwell among the children 
of Israel.' 

It was as the Indwelling One that God revealed 
Himself in the Son, whom He sanctified and sent 
into the world. More than once pur Lord insisted 



HOLINESS AND INDWELLING. 77 

upon it, c Believe me, that I am in the Father and 
the Father in me ; the Father abiding in me doeth 
the works.' It is specially as the temple. of God 
that believers are more than once called holy in the 
New Testament : ' The temple of God is holy, which 
temple ye are.' 'Your body is a temple of the 
Holy Spirit.' ' All the building groweth unto an 
holy temple in the Lord/ It is — we shall later on 
learn to understand this better — just because it is 
through the Spirit that the heart is prepared for 
the indwelling, and the indwelling effected and 
maintained, that the Spirit so peculiarly takes the 
attribute of Holy. The Indwelling Spirit is the 
Holy Spirit. The measure of His indwelling, or 
rather of His revealing the Indwelling Christ, is 
the measure of holiness. 

We have seen what the various degrees of 
nearness to God's Presence in Israel were. They 
are still to be found. You have Christians who 
dwell in the camp, but know little of drawing nigh 
to the Holy One. Then you have outer court 
Christians : they long for pardon and peace, they 
come ever again to the altar of atonement ; but 
they know little of true nearness or holiness ; of 
their privilege as priests to enter the holy place, 
Others there are who have learnt that this is their 
calling, and long to enter in, and yet hardly under- 
stand the boldness they have to enter into the 
Holiest of all, and to dwell there. Blessed they 
to whom this, the secret of the Lord, has been 
revealed. They know what the rent veil means, 



78 HOLY IN CHRIST. 

and the access into the immediate Presence. The 
veil hath been taken away from their hearts : they 
have found the secret of true holiness in the In- 
dwelling of the Holy One, the God who is holy and 
makes holy. 

Believer ! the God who calls you to holiness is 
the God of the Indwelling Life. The tabernacle 
typifies it, the Son reveals it, the Spirit communicates 
it, the eternal glory will fully manifest it. And 
you may experience it. It is your calling as a 
believer to be God's Holy Temple. Oh, do but 
yield yourself to His full indwelling ! seek not 
holiness in the first place in what you are or do ; 
seek it in God. Seek it not even as a gift from God, 
seek it in God, in His indwelling Presence. Worship 
Him in the beauty of holiness, as He dwells in the 
high and holy place. And as you worship, listen 
to His voice : ' Thus saith the high and lofty One, 
that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy : I 
dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that 
is of a contrite and humble spirit/ It is as the 
Spirit strengthens us mightily in the inward man, 
so that Christ dwells in our heart by faith, and the 
Father comes and makes with Him His abode in us, 
that we are truly holy. Oh, let us but, in true, 
true-hearted consecration, yield ourselves to be, as 
distinctly as was the tabernacle or the temple, given 
up entirely to be the dwelling of the Most High, the 
habitation of His Holiness. A house filled with 
the glory of God, a heart filled with all the fulness 
of God, is God's promise, is our portion. Let us 



HOLINESS AND INDWELLING. 79 

in faith claim and accept and hold fast the blessing: 
Christ, the Holy One of God, will in His Father's 
Name, enter and take possession. Then faith will 
bring the solution of all our difficulties, the victory 
over all our failures, the fulfilment of all our 
desires : ' The tent, the heart, shall be sanctified by 
my glory ; and I will dwell among them.' The 
open secret of true holiness, the secret of the joy 
unspeakable, is Christ dwelling in the heart by 
faith. 

Be holy, as I am holy. 



We bow our knees to the Father of our Lord 
Jesus, that He would grant unto us, according to 
the riches of His glory, what He has taught us to 
ask for. We ask nothing less than this, that Christ 
may dwell in our hearts by faith. We long for 
that most blessed, permanent, conscious indwelling 
of the Lord Jesus in the heart, which He so 
distinctly promised as the fruit of the Holy Spirit's 
coming. Father ! we ask for what He meant when 
He spake of the loving, obedient disciple : ■ I will 
come and manifest myself to him. We will come 
and take up our abode with him.' Oh, grant unto 
us this indwelling of Christ in the heart by faith ! 

. And for this, we beseech Thee, grant us to be 
strengthened with might by Thy Spirit in the inner 
man. O Most Mighty God ! let the spirit of Thy 
Divine Power work mightily within us, renewing 
our mind, and will, and affections, so that the heart 



80 HOLY IN CHRIST. 

be all prepared and furnished as a temple, as a 
home, for Jesus. Let that Blessed Spirit strengthen 
us to the faith that receives the Blessed Saviour 
and His indwelling Presence. 

O Most Gracious Father ! hear our cry. We 
do bow our knee to Thee. We plead the riches 
of Thy glory. We praise Thee who art mighty 
to do above what we can ask or think. We wait 
on Thee, O our Father: oh, grant us a mighty 
strengthening by the Spirit in the inner man, that 
this bliss may be ours in its full blessedness, our 
Lord Jesus dwelling in the heart. 

We ask it in His Name. Amen. 



7. God's dwelling in the midst of Israel was the great central fact to which all 
the commands concerning holiness were but preparatory and subordinate. So 
the work of the Holy Spirit also culminates in the personal indwelling of 
Christ. (John xiv. 21, 23. Eph. Hi. 16, 17.) Aim at this and expect it. 

2. The tabernacle with its three divisions was, as of other spiritual truths-, 
so the image of man's threefold nature. Our spirit is the Holiest of all, where 
God is meant to dwell, where the Holy Spirit is given. The life of the soul, 
with its powers of feeling, knowing, and willing, is the holy place. And the 
outer life of the body, of conduct and action, is the outer court. Begin by 
believing that the spirit dwells in the inmost sanctuary, where His workings 
are secret and hidden. Honour Him by trusting Him to work, by yielding to 
Him in silent worship before God. From within He will take possession of 
thought and will ; He wilt even fill the outer court, the body, with the Holiness 
of God. ' The God of peace Himself sanctify you wholly / and may your spirit, 
and soul, and body, be preserved entire, without blame.' 'Faithful is He which 
calleth you, who will also do it.' 

3. God's indwelling was within the veil, in the unseen, the secret ■ place. 
Faith knew it, and served Him with holy fear. Our faith knows that God 
the Holy Spirit has His abode in the hidden place of our inner life. Set 
open your inmost being to Him; bow in lowly reverence before the Holy 
One as you yield yourself to His working. Holiness is the presence of ih& 
Indwelling One. 



HOLINESS AND MEDIATION. 81 



Ninth Day* 
HOLY IN CHKIST. 

Holiness antt JleUtattotu 

« And thou shalt make a plate of pure gold, and grave upon it, 
Holiness to the Lord. And it shall be upon Aaron's fore- 
head, that Aaron may bear the iniquity of the holy things, 
which the children of Israel shall hallow in all their holy gifts; 
and it shall always be upon his forehead, that they may be 
accepted before the Lord.' — Ex. xxviii. 36, 38. 

aOD'S house was to be the dwelling-place of His 
Holiness, the place where He was to reveal 
Himself as the Holy One, not to be approached but 
with fear and trembling ; as the Holy-making One, 
drawing to Himself all who would be made par- 
takers of His Holiness. Of the revelation of His 
Holy and His Holy-making Presence, the centre is 
found in the person of the high priest, in his double 
capacity of representing God with man, and man 
with God. He is the embodiment of the Divine 
Holiness in human form, of human holiness as a 
Divine gift, as far as the dispensation of symbol and 
shadow could offer and express it. In him God 
came near to sanctify and bless the people. In 



82 HOLY IN CHRIST. 

him the people came their very nearest to God. And 
yet the very Day of Atonement, in which he might 
enter into the Most Holy, was but the proof of how 
unholy man was, and how unfit to abide in God's 
Presence. In himself a proof of Israel's unholiness, 
he yet was a type and picture of the coming Saviour, 
our blessed Lord Jesus, a wondrous exhibition of the 
way in which hereafter the holiness of God should 
become the portion of His people. 

Among the many points in which the high priest 
typified Christ as our sanctification, there is, perhaps, 
none more suggestive or beautiful than the holy 
crown he wore on his forehead. Everything about 
him was to be holy. His garments were holy gar- 
ments. But there was to be one thing in which 
this holiness reached its fullest manifestation. On 
his forehead he was always to wear a plate of gold, 
with the words engraved on it, Holiness to the 
Lokd. Every one was to read there that the whole 
object of his existence, the one thing he lived for, 
was to be the embodiment and the bearer of the 
Divine holiness, the chosen one through whom 
God's holiness might flow out in blessing upon the 
people. 

The way in which the blessing of the holy crown 
was to act was a most remarkable one. In bearing 
Holiness to the Loed on his forehead, he is, we 
read, ' to bear the iniquity of the holy things which 
the children of Israel hallow ; that they may be 
accepted before the Lord.' For every sin some 
sacrifice or way of atonement had been devised. 



HOLINESS AND MEDIATION. 83 

But how about the sin that cleaves to the very 
sacrifice and religious service itself ? ' Thou desirest 
truth in the inward parts/ How painfully the wor- 
shipper might be oppressed by the consciousness 
that his penitence, his faith, his love, his obedience, 
his consecration, were all imperfect and defiled ! For 
this need, too, of the worshipper, God had provided. 
The holiness of the high priest covered the sin and 
the unholiness of his holy things. The holy crown 
was God's pledge that the holiness of the high priest 
rendered the worshipper acceptable. If he was un- 
holy, there was one among his brethren who was 
holy, who had a holiness that could avail for him 
too, a holiness he could trust in. He could look to 
the high priest not only to effect atonement by his 
blood-sprinkling, but in his person to secure a holi- 
ness too that made him and his gifts most accept- 
able. In the consciousness of personal unholiness 
he might rejoice in a mediator, in the holiness 
of another than himself, the priest whom God had 
provided. 

Have we not here a most precious lesson, leading 
us a step farther on the way of holiness ? To our 
question, How God makes holy, we have the Divine 
answer : Through a man whom the Divine Holiness 
has chosen to rest upon, and whose holiness belongs 
to us, as His brethren, the very members of His own 
body. Through a holiness which is of such efficacy, 
that the very sins of our holy things disappear, and 
we can enter the Holy Presence with the assurance 
of being altogether well-pleasing. 



84 HOLY IN CHRIST. 

And is not just this the lesson that many an 
earnest seeker after holiness needs ? They know 
all that the Word teaches of the blessed Atonement, 
and the full pardon it has brought. They believe 
in the Father's wonderful love, and what He is 
ready to do for them. And yet, when they hear of 
the childlike simplicity, the assurance of faith, the 
loving obedience, and the blessed surrender with 
which the Father expects them to come and receive 
the blessing, their heart fails for fear. It is as if 
the blessing were all beyond their reach. What 
avails that the Holy One is said to come so nigh ? 
their unholiness renders them incapable of claiming 
or grasping the Presence that offers itself to them. 
Just see how the Holy One here reveals His way of 
making holy, and preparing for the fellowship of 
His Holiness. In His Elect One as Mediator, holi- 
ness is prepared and treasured up enough for all 
who come through Him. As I bow to pray or wor- 
ship, and feel how much there is still wanting of 
that humility, and fervency, and faith, that God has 
a right to demand, I may look up to the High Priest 
in His Holiness, to the holy crown upon His fore- 
head, and believe that the iniquity of my holy things 
is borne and taken away. I may, with all my defi- 
ciency and unworthiness, know most assuredly that 
my prayer is acceptable, a sweet-smelling savour. 
I may look up to the Holy One to see Him smiling 
on me, for the sake of His Anointed One. ' The 
holy crown shall always be on His forehead, that 
they may be accepted before the Lord/ It is the 



HOLINESS AND MEDIATION. 85 

blessed truth of Substitution — One for all — of Medi- 
atorship ; God's way of making us holy. The 
sacrifice of the worshipping Israelite is holy and 
acceptable in virtue of the holiness of another. 

The Old Testament shadow can never adequately 
set forth the Xew Testament reality with its fulness 
of grace and truth. As we proceed in our study, 
we shall find that the holiness of Jesus as sancti- 
fication is not only imputed but imparted, because 
we are in Him ; the new man we have put on is 
created in true holiness. We are not only counted 
holy, we are holy, we have received a new holy 
nature in Christ Jesus. c He that sanctifieth and 
they who are sanctified are all of One ; therefore 
He is not ashamed to call them brethren/ It is 
our living union with Jesus, God's Holy One, that 
has given us the new and holy nature, and with 
that a claim and a share in all the holiness there is 
in Jesus. And so, as often as we are conscious of 
how unholy we are, we come under the covering of 
the Holiness of Jesus, in the full assurance that we 
and our gifts are most acceptable. However great 
be the weakness of our faith, the shortcoming in 
our desire for God's glory, the lack in our love or 
zeal, as we see Jesus, with Holiness to the Lord on 
His forehead, we lift up our faces to receive 
the Divine smile of full approval and perfect 
acceptance. 

This is God's way of making holy. ISTot only 
with the holy place, as we have seen, but with the 
holy persons too, He begins with a .centre, and 



86 HOLY IN CHRIST. 

from that in ever-widening circle makes holy. 
And that this Divine method will be crowned with 
success we may be sure. In the Word we find a 
most remarkable illustration of the extent to which 
it will be realized. We find the words on the-holy 
crown once again in the Old Testament at its close, 
In the day of the Lord, f there shall be upon the 
bells of the horses, Holiness to the Lord/ The 
high priest's motto shall then have become the 
watchword of daily life ; every article of beauty or 
of service shall be holy too ; from the head it shall 
have extended to the skirts of the garments. Let 
us begin with realizing the Holiness of Jesus in 
its power to cover the iniquity of our holy things ; 
let us make proof of it, and no longer suffer our 
unworthiness to keep us back or make us doubt ; 
let us believe that we and our holy things are 
acceptable, because in Christ holy to the Lord ; let 
us live in this consciousness of acceptance, and 
enter into fellowship with the Holy One. As we, 
enter in and abide in the holiness of Jesus, it wll 
enter in and abide in us. It will take possession* 
and spread its conquering power through qw wholo 
life, until with us too upon everything th&t belongs 
to us the word shall shine, Holiness, m i^he LoRik 
And we shall again find how God*& w t ay^ of holiness 
is ever from a centre, here tb& centre of our 
renewed nature, in ever-wid^mdng circle to make- 
His Holiness prove its pow§^. s I^et us but dwell 
under the covering of Ihe Holiness of Jesus,, 
as He takes away the %amiity o£ gur holy tliix^ 



HOLINESS AND MEDIATION. 87 

He will make us and our life holy to the 
Lord. 

Be ye holy, foe I am holy. 



my God and Father ! my soul doth bless Thee 
for this wondrous revelation of what Thy way and 
Thy grace is with those whom Thou hast called 
1 Holy in Christ.' Thou knowest, Lord, how 
continually our hearts have limited our acceptance 
with Thee by our attainments, and conscious short- 
coming, has wrought condemnation. We knew too 
little how, in the Holiness of Him who makes us 
holy, there is a Divinely infinite efficacy to cover 
our iniquities, and give us the assurance of perfect 
acceptance. Blessed Father ! open our eyes to see, 
and our hearts to understand this holy crown of our 
blessed Jesus, with its wondrous and most blessed, 
Holiness to the Lokd. 

And when our hearts condemn us, because our 
prayers are so little consciously according to the 
will or to the glory of God, or truly in the name of 
Jesus, most Holy Father, be pleased by Thy Spirit 
to show us how bright the smile and how hearty the 
welcome is we still have with Thee. Teach us to 
come in the Holiness of our High Priest, and enter 
into Thine, until it take possession of us, and per- 
meate our . whole being, and all that is in us be 
holy to the Lord. Amen. 

1. Holiness is not something I can see or admire in myself : it is covering 
myself, losing myself, in the Holiness of Jesus. How wonderfully this is 
typified in Aaron and the holy crown. And the more I see and have appre- 



88 HOLY IN CHRIST. 

hended of the Holiness of Jesus, the less shall I see or seek of holiness in 
myself. 

2. He will make me holy ; my tempers and dispositions will be renewed ; my 
heart and mind cleansed and sanctified ; holiness will be a new nature ; and 
yet there will be all along the consciousness, humbling and yet full of joy : It 
is not I ; Christ liueth in me. 

3. Let us be uery low and tender before God, that the Holy Spirit may 
revsal to us what it is to be holy in the Holiness of Another, in the Holiness of 
Jesus, that is, in the Holiness of God. 

4. Do not trouble or weary too much to grasp this with the intellect. Just 
believe it, and look in simplicity and trust to Jesus to make it all right for 
you. 

5. Holy in Christ. In childlike faith I take Christ's holiness afresh as my 
covering before God. In loving obedience I take it into my will and life. I 
trust and I follow Jesus : this rs the path of holiness. 

6. If we gather up the lessons we have found in the Word from Paradise 
downward, we see that the elements of holiness in us are these, each corre- 
sponding to some special aspect of God's holiness : deep Restfulness, humble 
Reverence, entire Surrender, joyful Adoration, simple Obedience. These alt 
prepare for the Divine Indwelling, and this again we have through the Abiding 
In Jesus with the Crown of Holiness on His head. 



HOLINESS AND SEPARATION. 89 



Tenth Day. 
HOLT m CHEIST. 

fairness antr Reparation. 

* I am the Lord your God, which have separated yon from 
other people. And ye shall be holy unto me, for I the Lord am 
holy, and have separated you from other people that ye should 
be Mine. 9 — Lev. xx. 24, 26. 

1 Until the days be fulfilled, in the which he separateth him- 
self unto the Lord, he shall be holy. . . . All the days of his 
separation he is holy unto the Lord.' — Num. vi. 5, 8. 

'Wherefore Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people 
through His own blood, suffered without the gate. Let us 
therefore go forth unto Him without the camp, bearing His 
reproach.' — Heb. xiii. 12, 13. 

SEPAEATION is not holiness, but is the way to 
it. Though there can be no holiness without 
separation, there can be separation that does not 
lead to holiness. It is of deep importance to under- 
stand both the difference and the connection, that 
we may be kept from the right - hand error of 
counting separation alone as holiness, as well as 
the left - hand error of seeking holiness without 
separation. 

The Hebrew word for holiness possibly comes from 
a root that means to separate. But where we 



90 HOLY IN CHRIST. 

have in our translation ' separate ' or ' sever ' or f set 
apart/ we have quite different words. 1 The w T ord for 
holy is used exclusively to express that special idea. 
And though the idea of holy always includes that of 
separation, it is itself something infinitely higher. 
It is of great importance to understand this w T ell, 
because the being set apart to God, the surrender to 
His claim, the devotion or consecration to His ser- 
vice, is often spoken of as if this constituted holiness. 
We cannot too earnestly press the thought that 
this is only the beginning, the presupposition : holi- 
ness itself is infinitely more ; not what I am, or do, 
or give, is holiness, but what God is, and gives, and 
does to me. It is God's taking possession of me that 
makes me holy ; it is the Presence and the glory of 
God that really makes holy. A careful study of 
God's words to Israel will make this clear to us. 
Eight times we find the expression in Leviticus, ' Ye 
shall be holy, for I am holy/ Holiness is the 
highest attribute of God, expressive not only of His 
relation to Israel, but of His very being and nature, 
His infinite moral perfection. And though it is 
by very slow and gradual steps that He can teach 
the carnal darkened mind of man what this means, 
yet from the very commencement He tells His 
people that His purpose is that they should be 
like Himself — holy because and as He is holy. 
To tell me that God separates men for Himself 
to be His, even as He gives Himself to be theirs, 
tells me of a relation that exists, but tells me 

1 See Note B. 



HOLINESS AND SEPARATION. 91 

nothing of the real nature of this Holy Being, or of 
the essential worth of the holiness He will com- 
municate to me. Separation is only the setting apart 
and taking possession of the vessel to be cleansed 
and used ; it is the filling of it with the precious 
contents we entrust to it that gives it its real value. 
Holiness is the Divine filling without which the 
separation leaves us empty. Separation is not 
holiness. 

But separation is essential to holiness. ' I have 
separated you from other people, and ye shall be 
holy/ Until I have chosen out and separated a 
vessel from those around it, and, if need be, cleansed 
it, I cannot fill or use it. I must have it in my 
hand, full and exclusive command of it for the time 
being, or I will not pour into it the precious milk 
or wine. And just so God separated His people 
when He brought them up out of Egypt, separated 
them unto Himself when He gave them His 
covenant and His law, that He might have them 
under His control and power, to work out His 
purpose of making them holy. This He could not 
do until He had them apart, and had wakened in 
them the consciousness that they were His peculiar 
people, wholly and only His, until He had so taught 
them also to separate themselves to Him. Separa- 
tion is essential to holiness. 

The institution of the Nazarite will confirm this, 
and will also bring out very clearly what separation 
means. Israel was meant to be a holy nation. Its 
holiness was specially typified in its priests. With 



92 HOLY m CHRIST. 

regard to the individual Israelite, we nowhere read 
in the books of Moses of his being holy. But there 
were ordinances through which the Israelite, who 
would fain prove his desire to be entirely holy, 
could do so. He might separate himself from the 
ordinary life of the nation around him, and live the 
life of a Nazarite, a separated one. This separation 
was accepted, in those days of shadow and type, as 
holiness. ' All the days of his separation he is holy 
unto the Lord.' 

The separation consisted specially in three 
things — temperance, in abstinence from the fruit of 
the vine ; humiliation, in not cutting or shaving his 
hair (' it is a shame for a man if he have long hair '); 
self-sacrifice, in not defiling himself for even father 
or mother, or their death. What we must specially 
note is that the separation was not from things 
unlawful, but things lawful. There was nothing 
sinful in itself in Abraham living in his father's 
house, or in Israel dwelling in Egypt. But it is in 
giving up, not what can be proved to be sin, but all 
that may hinder the full intensity of our surrender 
into God's hands to make us holy, that the spirit of 
separation is manifested. 

Let us learn the lessons this truth suggests. We 
must know the need for separation. It is no arbi- 
trary demand of God, but has its ground in the 
very nature of things. To separate a thing is to 
set it free for one special use or purpose, that it 
may with undivided power fulfil the will of him who 
chose it, and so realize its destiny. It is the prin* 



HOLINESS AND SEPARATION. 93 

ciple that lies at the root of all division of labour; 
complete separation to one branch of study or 
labour is the way to success and perfection. I have 
before me an oak forest with the trees all shooting 
up straight and close to each other. On the out- 
skirts there is one tree separated from his fellows ; 
its heavy trunk and wide-spreading branches prove 
how its being separated, and having a large piece of 
ground separated to its own use, over which roots 
and branches can spread, is the secret of growth 
and greatness. Our human powers are limited ; if 
God is to take full possession, if we are fully to 
enjoy Him, separation to Him is nothing but the 
simple, natural, indispensable requisite. God wants 
us all to Himself, that He may give Himself all 
to us. 

We must know the purpose of separation. It is 
to be found in what God has said, 'Ye shall be holy 
unto me, for I the Lord am holy, and have separated 
you from the people, that ye should be Mine.' God 
has separated us for Himself in the deepest sense of 
the word ; that He might enter into us, and show 
forth Himself in us. His holiness is the sum and 
the centre of all His perfections ; it is that He may 
make us holy like Himself that He has separated 
us. Separation never has any value in itself; it 
may become most wrong or hurtful ; everything 
depends upon the object proposed. It is as God 
gets and takes full possession of us, as the eternal 
life in Christ has the mastery of our whole being, as 
the Holy Spirit flows fully and freely through us, 



94 HOLY IN CHRIST. 

so that we dwell in God, and God in us, that 
separation will be, not a thing of ordinances and 
observances, but a spiritual reality. And it is as 
this purpose of God is seen and accepted and 
followed after, that difficult questions as to what we 
must be separated from, and how much sacrifice 
separation demands, will find an easy answer. God 
separates from all that does not lead us into His 
holiness and fellowship. 

We need, above all, to know the power of separation, 
the power that leads us into it in the spirit of desire 
and of joy, of liberty and of love. The great 
separating word in human language is the word Mine. 
In this we have the great spring of effort and of 
happiness : in the child with its toys, in labour with 
its gains and rewards, in the patriot who dies for his 
country, it is this Mine that lays its hand on what 
it sets apart from all else. It is the great word that 
love uses. Be it the child that says to its mother, 
My own mamma, and calls forth the response, My 
own child ; the bridegroom who draws the daughter 
from her beloved home and parents to become his ; 
or the Holy God who speaks : ' I have separated you 
from the people, that ye should be Mine ; ' it is always 
with that Mine that love exerts its mighty power, and 
draws from all else to itself. God Himself knows no 
mightier argument, can put forth no more powerful 
attraction than this, ' that ye should be Mine' And 
the power of separation will come to us, and work 
in us, just as we yield ourselves to study and realize 
that holy purpose, to listen to and appreciate that 



HOLINESS AND SEPARATION. 95 

wondrous Mine, to be appropriated and possessed of 
that Almighty Love. 

Let us study step by step the wondrous path 
in which Divine Love does it separating work. 
In redemption it prepares the way. Israel is 
separated from Egypt by the blood of the Lamb 
and the guiding pillar of fire. In its command, 
' Come out and be separate,' it wakens man to 
action ; in its promises, ' I will be your God,' it 
stirs desire and strengthens faith. In all the 
holy saints and servants of God, and at last in 
Him who was holy, harmless, undefiled, separate 
from sinners, it points the way. In the power of 
the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Holiness, it seals the 
separation by the Presence of the Indwelling God. 
This is indeed the power of separation : the separat- 
ing power of the Presence of God ; this it is we 
need to know. 'Wherein now shall it be known that 
I have found grace in Thy sight, Land Thy people?' 
said Moses : ' is it not in that Thou goest with us ? so 
shall we be separated, I and Thy people, from all the 
people that are upon the face of the earth/ It is 
the consciousness of God's Presence, making and 
keeping us His very own, that w^orks the true 
separateness from the world and its spirit, from 
ourselves and our own will. And it is as this 
separation is accepted and prized and persevered in 
by us, that the holiness of God will enter in and 
take possession. And we shall realize that to be 
the Lord's property, a people of His own, is infinitely 
more than merely to be accounted or acknowledged aa 



96 HOLY IN CHKIST. 

His, that it means nothing less than that in the powel 
and indwelling of the Holy Ghost God fills our 
being, our affections, and our will with His own life 
and holiness. He separates us for Himself, and 
sanctifies us to be His dwelling. He comes Him- 
self to take personal possession by the indwelling of 
Christ in the heart. And we are then truly separate 
and kept separate by the presence of God within us. 

Be ye holy, foe I am holy. 

my God ! who hast separated me for Thyself, 
I beseech Thee, by Thy mighty power, to make 
this Divine separation deed and truth to me. May 
within, in the depths of my own spirit, and with- 
out, in all my intercourse, the crown of separation 
of my God be upon me. 

1 pray Thee especially, my God, to perfect 
in power the separation from self! Let Thy 
Presence in the indwelling of my Lord Jesus be 
the power that banishes self from the throne. I 
have turned from it with abhorrence; oh, my 
Father, reveal Thy Son fully in me ! it is His 
enthronement in my heart can keep me as Thy 
own, as Himself takes the place of myself. 

And give me grace, Lord, in my outward life to 
wait for a Divine wisdom, that I may know to 
witness for Thy glory and for what Thy people 
need, to the blessedness of an entire giving up of 
everything for God, a separation that holds back 
nothing, to be His and His alone. 



HOLINESS AND SEPARATION. 97 

Holy Lord God ! visit Thy people. Oh, with- 
draw Thou them from the world and conformity 
to it. Separate, Lord, separate Thine own for 
Thyself. Separate, Lord, the wheat from the 
chaff; separate, as by fire, the gold from the 
dross ; that it may be seen who are the Lord's, 
even His holy ones. Amen. 

7. Loue separates effectually. With what jealousy a husband claims his wife, 
a mother her children, a miser his possessions I Pray that the Holy Spirit 
may show how God brought you to Himself, that you should be His. 'He is 
a holy God; He is a Jealous God.' God's loue shed abroad in the heart makes 
separation easy. 

2. Death separates effectually. If I reckon myself to be indeed dead in 
Christ, I am separated from self by the power of Christ's death. Life separates 
still more mightily. As I say, 'Not I, but Christ liueth in me,' I am lifted up 
out of the life of self . 

3. Separation must be manifest; it is meant as a witness to others and 
ourselves ; it must find expression in the external, if internally it is to be real 
and strong. It is the characteristic of an action that it not merely expresses 
a feeling, but nourishes and strengthens the feeling to which it corresponds. 
When the soul enters the fellowship of God, it feels the need of external 
separation, sometimes euen from what appears to others harmless. If 
animated by the spirit of lowly consecration to God, the external may be 
a great srengthening of the true separateness. 

4. Separation to God and appropriation by Him go together. This has been 
the blessing that has come to martyrs, confessors, missionaries, — all who have 
given distinct expression to the forsaking all. 

5. Separation begins in love, and ends in loue. The spirit of separation 
is the spirit of self-sacrifice, of surrender to the loue of God; the truly 
separate one will be the most loving and love-winning, given up to serve God 
and man. 

6. God's holiness is His separateness ; let us enter into His separateness 
from the world ; that will be our holiness. Hide thyself in God. Thou art 
then separate and holy. 



a 



98 HOLY IN CHRIST. 



Eleventh 1 Day. 
HOLY IN CHRIST. 

Efje Jtolg ©w of Israel 

• I am the Lord that brought you up out of the land of Egypt, 
to be your God ; ye shall therefore be holy, for / am holy. I 
the Lord which make you holy, am holy.' — Lev. xi. 45, xxi. 8. 

4 1 am the Lord Thy God, the Holy One of Israel, Thy Saviour. 
Thus saith the Lord, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel : 
I am the Lord, your Holy One, the Creator of Israel, your 
King.'— Is A. xliii. 3, 14, 15. 

IN the book of Exodus we found God making 
provision for the Holiness of His people. In 
the holy times and holy places, holy persons, holy 
things, and holy services, He had taught His people 
that everything around Him, that all that would 
come near Him, must be holy. He would only 
dwell in the midst of holiness ; His people must be 
a holy people. But there is no direct mention of 
God Himself as holy. In the book of Leviticus we 
are led on a step further. 1 Here first we have God 

I ' I am the Lord your God ; ye shall therefore make holy your- 
selves, and be holy, for I am holy ' (Lev. xi. 44). 

I I am the Lord that bringeth you up out of the land of Egypt 



THE HOLY ONE OF ISKAEL. 09 

speaking of His own holiness, and making it the 
plea for the holiness of His people, as well as its 
pledge and power. Without this the revelation of 
holiness were incomplete, and the call to holiness 
powerless. True holiness will come to us as we 
learn that God Himself alone is holy. It is He 
alone makes holy ; it is as we come to Himself, and 
in obedience and love are linked to Himself, that 
His Holiness can rest on us. 

From the books of Moses onwards we shall find 
that the name of God as holy is found but seldom 
in the inspired writings, until we come to Isaiah, 
the evangelist prophet. There it occurs twenty-six 
times, and has its true meaning opened up in the 
way in which it is linked with the name of Saviour 
and Eedeemer. The sentiments of joy and trust 
and praise, with which a redeemed people would 
look upon their Deliverer, are all mentioned in 
connection with the name of the Holy One. ' Cry 

to be your God : ye shall therefore be holy, for I am holy ' (Lev. 
xi 45). 

I Ye shall be holy, for / the Lord your God am holy ' (Lev. xix. 2). 
■ Make holy yourselves therefore, and be ye holy, for I am the 

Lord your God ; ye shall keep my statutes and do them : I am the 
Lord which make you holy ' (Lev. xx. 7, 8). 

' Ye shall be holy unto me, for / the Lord am holy, and have 
separated you from other people, that ye should be miue' (Lev. 
xx. 26). 

* The priest shall be holy unto thee, for / the Lord which make 
you holy, am holy ' (Lev. xxi. 8). 

I I will be hallowed among the children of Israel ; I am the Lord 
which make you holy ' (Lev. xxii. 32). 

' I am the Lord which make them holy ' (Lev. xxi. 15, 23 ; xxii 
9, 16). 



100 HOLY IN CHRIST. 

aloud and shout, thou inhabitant of Zion, for great 
is the Holy One of Israel in the midst of thee/ 
' The poor among men shall rejoice in the Holy One 
of Israel! ' Thou shalt rejoice in the Lord, and 
shalt glory in the Holy One of Israel.' In Paradise 
we saw that God the Creator was God the Sanctifier, 
perfecting the work of His hands. In Israel we 
saw that God the Eedeemer was ever God the 
Sanctifier, making holy the people He had chosen 
for Himself. Here in Isaiah we see how it is God 
the Sanctifier, the Holy One, who is to bring about 
the great redemption of the New Testament : as 
the Holy One, He is the Eedeemer. God redeems 
because He is holy, and loves to make holy : Holi- 
ness will be Eedemption perfected. Eedemption 
and Holiness together are to be found in the 
personal relation to God. The key to the secret 
of holiness is offered to each believer in that word : 
' Thus saith the Lord, your Eedeemer, the Holy 
One of Israel : I am the Lord, your Holy One/ 
To come more to know, to possess the Holy One, 
and be possessed of Him, is Holiness. 

If God's Holiness is thus the only hope for ours, 
it is right that we seek to know what that Holiness 
is. And though we may find it indeed to be some- 
thing that passeth knowledge, it will not be in vain 
to gather up what has been revealed in the Word con- 
cerning it. Let us do so in the spirit of holy fear and 
worship, trusting to the Holy Spirit to be our teacher. 

And let us first notice how this Holiness of God, 
though it is often mentioned as one of the Divine 



THE HOLY ONE OF ISRAEL. 101 

attributes, can hardly be counted such, on a level 
with the others. The other attributes all refer to 
some special aspect or characteristic of the Divine 
Nature ; Holiness appears to express what is the 
very essence or perfection of the Divine Being 
Himself. None of the attributes can be predicated 
of all that belongs to God ; but Scripture speaks of 
His Holy Name, His Holy Day, His Holy Habita- 
tion, His Holy Word. In the word Holy we have 
the nearest possible approach to a summary of all 
the Divine perfections, the description of what 
Divinity is. "We speak of the other attributes as 
Divine perfections, but in this we have the only 
human expression for the Divine Perfection itself. 
It is for this reason that theologians have found 
such difficulty in framing a definition that can 
express all the word means. 1 

The original Hebrew word, whether derived 
from a root signifying to separate, or another with 
the idea of shining, expressed the idea of something 
distinguished from others, separate from them by 
superior excellence. God is separate and different 
from all that is created, keeps Himself separate 
from all that is not God ; as the Holy One He 
maintains His Divine glory and perfection against 
whatever might interfere with it : ( There is none 
holy, but the Lord ; ' ' To whom will you liken me ? 
or shall I be equal ? saith the Holy One.' As 
Holy, God is indeed the Incomparable One ; Holiness 

1 See Note C for some account of the different definitions that 
have been given. 



102 HOLY IN CHRIST. 

is His alone ; there is nothing like it in heaven 
or earth, except when He gives it. And so out 
holiness will consist, not in a human separation in 
which we attempt to imitate God's, — no, but in 
entering into His separateness ; belonging entirely 
to Him ; set apart by Him and for Himself. 

Closely connected with this is the idea of Exalta- 
tion : ' Thus saith the High and Holy One, whose 
name is Holy.' It was the Holy One who was seen 
sitting upon a throne high and lifted up, the object 
of the worship of the seraphim. In Psalm xcix. 
God's Holiness is specially spoken of in connection 
with His exaltation. For this reason, too, His 
Holiness is so often connected with His Glory and 
Majesty (see ' Sixth Day '). And here our holiness 
will be seen to be nothing but the poverty and 
humility which comes when ' the loftiness of man is 
brought low, and the Lord alone is exalted.' 

If we inquire more closely wherein the infinite 
excellence of this Separateness and Exaltation con- 
sists, we are led to think of the Divine Purity, and 
that not only in its negative aspect — as hatred of 
sin — but with the more positive element of perfect 
beauty. Because we are sinners, and the revelation 
of God's Holiness is in a world of sin, it is natural, 
it is right and meet, that the first, that the abiding 
impression of God's Holiness should be that of 
an Infinite Purity that cannot look upon sin, in 
whose Presence it becomes the sinner to hide his 
face and tremble. The Eighteousness of God, for- 
bidding and condemning and punishing sin, has its 



THE HOLY ONE OF ISRAEL. 103 

root in His Holiness, is one of its two elements — ■ 
the devouring and destroying power of the con- 
suming fire. ' God the Holy One is sanctified in 
righteousness ' (Isa. v. 16); in righteousness the 
Holiness of the Holy One is maintained and revealed. 
But Light not only discovers what is impure, that it 
may be purified, but is in itself a thing of infinite 
beauty. And so some of our holiest men have not 
hesitated to speak of Gods Holiness as the infinite 
Pulchritude or Beauty of the Divine Being, the 
Perfect Purity and Beauty of that Light in which 
God dwelleth. And if the Holiness of God is to 
become ours, to rest upon us, and enter into us, 
there must be, without ceasing, the holy fear that 
trembles at the thought of grieving the infinite sen- 
sitiveness of this Holy One by our sins, and yet side 
by side, and in perfect harmony with it, the deep 
longing to behold the Beauty of the Lord, an admira- 
tion of its Divine glory, and a joyful surrender to 
be His alone. 

We must go one step further. When God says, 
' I am holy : / make holy' we see that one of the 
chief elements of His Holiness is this, that it seeks 
to communicate itself, to make partaker of its own 
perfection and blessedness. This is nought but 
Love. In the wonderful revelation in Isaiah of 
what the Holy One is to His people, we must 
beware of misreading God's precious Word. It is 
not said, that though God is the Holy One, and 
hates sin, and ought to punish and destroy, that 
notwithstanding this He will save. By no meana 



104 HOLY IN CHKIST. 

But we are taught that as the Holy One, fust because 
He is the Holy One, who delights to make holy, He 
will be the Deliverer of His people. (See Hos. 
ii. 9.) It is Holiness above everything else that 
we are invited to look to, to trust in, to rejoice in. 
The Holy One is the Holy -making One : He redeems 
and saves that He may win our confidence for 
Himself, that He may draw us to Himself as the 
Holy One, that in the personal attachment to Him- 
self we may learn to obey, to become of one mind 
with Him, to be holy as He is holy. 

The Divine Holiness is thus that infinite Perfec- 
tion of Divinity in which Eighteousness and Love 
are in perfect harmony, out of which they proceed, 
and which together they reveal. It is that Energy 
of the Divine life in the power of which God not 
only keeps Himself free from all creature weakness 
or sin, but unceasingly seeks to lift the creature into 
union with Himself and the full participation of 
His own purity and perfection. The glory of God 
as God, as the God of Creation and Eedemption, is 
His Holiness. It is in this that the Separateness 
and Exaltation of God, even above all thought of 
man, really consists. ' God is Light;' in His infinite 
Purity He reveals all darkness, and yet has no 
fellowship with it. He judges and condemns it ; 
He saves out of it, and lifts up into the fellowship 
of His own purity and blessedness. This is the 
Holy One of Israel. 

It is this God who speaks to us, 'I am the 
Lord your God : I am holy : I make holy/ It is 



THE HOLY ONE OF ISRAEL. 105 

in the adoring contemplation of His Holiness, in the 
trustful surrender to it, in the loving fellowship 
with Himself, the Holy One, that we can be made 
holy. My brother ! would you be holy ? listen again, 
and let, in the deep silence of trust, God's words 
sink into your heart — ' Your Holy One.' Come to 
Himself and claim Him as your God, and claim all 
that He, as the Holy One who makes holy, can do 
for you. Just remember that Holiness is Himself. 
Come to Him ; worship Him ; give Him the glory. 
Seek not, even from Him, holiness in yourself ; let 
self be abased, and be content that the Holiness is 
His. As His presence fills your heart, as His Holi- 
ness and Glory are your one desire, as His holy 
Will and Love are your delight, — as the Holy One 
becomes all in all to you, — you will be holy with 
the holiness He loves to see. And as, to the end, 
you see nothing to admire in self, and only Beauty in 
Him, you will know that He has laid of His glory 
on you ; and your holiness will be found in the 
song, There is none holy, but the Lord. 

Be ye holy, as I am holy. 



God ! we have again heard the wonderful 
revelation of Thyself, ' I am holy.' And as we felt 
how infinitely exalted above all our conceptions 
Thy Holiness is, we heard Thy call, almost still 
more wonderful, ' Be ye holy, as I a.m holy. 5 And 
as every thought of how we were to be holy, as Thou 
art holy, failed us, we heard Thy voice once again, 



106 HOLY IN CHRIST. 

in this most wonderful word of all, ' I make you 
holy/ I am ' your Holy One.' 

Most Holy God ! we do beseech Thee, give us in 
some due measure to realize how unholy we are, 
and so to take the place that becomes us in Thy 
presence. Oh that the sinfulness of our nature, 
and all that is of self, may be so discovered to us, 
that it may be no longer possible to live in it ! 
May the Light that reveals this, reveal too, how 
Thy. Holiness is our only hope, our sure refuge, our 
complete deliverance. Lord ! speak into our 
souls the word, ' The Holy One, your Eedeemer/ 
' Your Holy One/ with such power by Thy Spirit, 
that our faith may grow into the assured confidence 
that we can be holy as Thou art holy. 

Holy Lord God ! we wait for Thee. Eeveal 
Thyself in power within us, and fit us to be the 
messengers of Thy Holiness, to tell Thy people how 
holy Thou art, and how holy we must be, and how 
holy Thou dost make us. Amen. 

1. This Holy One is God Almighty. Before He revealed Himself to Israel 
as the Holy One, He made Himself known to Abraham as the Almighty, 'who 
quickeneth the dead.' In all your dealings, with God for holiness, remember 
He is the Almighty One, who can do wonders in you. Say often, 'Glory to 
Him who is mighty to do exceeding abundantly above all we ask or think.' 

2. This Holy One is the Righteous God, a consuming fire. Cast yourself 
into it, that all that is sinful may be destroyed. As you lay yourself upon 
the altar, expect the fire. 'And yield your members unto God as instru- 
ments of Righteousness.' 

3. This Holy One is the God of Love. He is your Father ; yield yourself 
to let the Holy Spirit cry in you, Abba Father! that is, to let Him 
shed abroad and fill your heart with God's father-love. God's Holiness is 
His fatherliness ; our holiness is childlikeness. Be simple, loving, trustful. 

4. This Holy One is God. Let Him be God to you ; ruling all, filling all, 
working all. Worship Him, come near to Him, live with and in and for 
Him ; He will be your holiness. 



THE THRICE HOLY ONE. 107 



Twelfth Day. 



HOLY IX CHEIST. 

Z\)t £i}rice ^olg ©tie. 

*I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up. 
Above Him stood the seraphim. And one cried to another, 
and said, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts : the whole earth 
is full of His glory.' — Isa. vi. 1-3. 

'And the four living creatures, they have no rest day and 
night, saying, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God, the Almighty, 
which was, and which is, and which is to come.' — Key. iv. 8. 

IT is not only on earth, but in heaven too, that 
the Holiness of God is His chief and most 
glorious attribute. It is not only on earth, but in 
heaven too, that the highest inspiration of adoration 
and praise makes mention of His Holiness. The 
brightest of living beings, they who are ever before 
and around and above the throne, find their glory 
in adoring and proclaiming the Holiness of God : 
surely there can be for us no higher honour than 
to study and to know, to worship and adore, to 
proclaim and show forth the glory of the Thrice 
Holy One. 

After Moses, as we know, Isaiah was the chief 



108 HOLY IN CHRIST.- 

messenger of the Holiness of God, Each had a 
special preparation for his commission to make 
known the Holy One. Moses saw the Holy One 
in the fire, and hid his face and feared to look upon 
God, and so was prepared for being His messenger, 
and for praising Him as 'glorious in holiness.' 
Isaiah, as he heard the song of the seraphim, and 
saw the fire on the altar, and the house filled with 
the smoke, cried out, ' Woe is me/ It was riot till, 
in the deep sense of the need of cleansing, he had 
received the touch of the fire and the purging of his 
sin, that he might bear to Israel the Gospel of the 
Holy One as its Eedeemer. May it be in the spirit 
of fear and lowly worship that we listen to the song 
of the seraphim, and seek to know and worship 
the Thrice Holy One. And may ours too be the 
cleansing with the fire, that we may be found fit 
to tell God's people that He is the Holy One of 
Israel, their Eedeemer. 

The threefold repetition of the Holy has at all 
times by the Church of Christ been connected with 
the Holy Trinity. The song of the living creatures 
around the throne (Eev. iv.) is evidence of the truth 
of this thought. We there find it followed by the 
adoration of Him w T ho was, and is, and is to come, 
the Almighty : the Eternal Source, the present 
manifestation in the Son, the future perfecting of 
the revelation of God in the Spirit's work in His 
Church. The truth of the Holy Trinity is often 
regarded as an abstract doctrine, with little direct 
bearing on practical life. So far is this from being 



THE THEICE HOLY ONE. 109 

the case, that a living faith must root in it : some 
spiritual insight into. the relation and the operation 
of each of the Three, and the reality of their living 
Oneness, is an essential element of true growth iii 
knowledge and spiritual understanding. 1 Let ua 
here regard the Trinity specially in its relation to 
God's Holiness and as the source of ours. What 
does it mean that we adore the Thrice Holy One ? 
God is not only holy, but makes holy : in the 
revelation of the Three Persons we have the revela- 
tion of the way in which God makes holy. 

The Trinity teaches us that God has revealed 
Himself in two ways. The Son is the Form of God, 
His manifestation as He shows Himself to man, the 
Image in which His unseen glory is embodied, and 
to which man is to be conformed. The Spirit is 
the Power of God, working in man, and leading him 
up to that Image. In Jesus, He w T ho had been in 
the form of God took the form of man ; and the 
Divine Holiness was literally manifested in the 

1 The Divine necessity and meaning of the doctrine of the Trinity 
is seen from the counterpart we have of it in nature. In every 
living object that exists we distinguish first the life, then the form 
or shape in which that life manifests itself, then the power or 
effect as seen in the result which the life acting in its form or 
manifestation produces. And so we have God as the Unseen One, 
the Fountain of life ; the Son as the Form or Image of God, the 
manifestation of the Unseen Life ; and the Holy Spirit as the 
Power of that life proceeding from the Father and the Son, and 
working out the purpose of God's will in the Church. Applying 
ihis thought to God as the Holy One, we shall understand better 
*he place of the Son and the Spirit as they bring to us the Holiness 
jfGod. 



110 HOLY IN CHRIST. 

form of a human life and the members of a human 
body. A new holy human nature was formed m 
Christ, to be communicated to us. In His death 
His own personal holiness was perfected as human 
obedience, and so the power of sin conquered and 
broken. Therefore in the resurrection, through 
the Spirit of Holiness, He was declared to be the 
Son of God with power to impart His life to us. 
There the Spirit of Holiness was set free from the 
veil of the flesh, the trammels that hindered it, and 
obtained power to enter and dwell in man. The 
Holy Spirit was poured out as the fruit of Eesur- 
rection and Ascension. And the Spirit is now the 
Power of God in us, working upwards towards 
Christ, to reproduce His life and Holiness in us, to 
fit us for fully receiving and showing forth Him in 
our lives. Christ from above comes to us as the 
embodiment of the Unseen Holiness of God : the 
Spirit from within lifts us up to meet Him, and fits 
us to receive and make our own all that is in Him. 
The Triune God whom we adore is the Thrice 
Holy One : the mystery of the Trinity is the 
mystery of Holiness : the Glory and the Power of 
the Trinity is the Glory and Power of God who 
makes us holy. There is God dwelling in light 
inaccessible, a consuming fire of Holy Love, destroy- 
ing all that resists, glorifying into its own purity all 
that yields. There is the Son, easting Himself into 
that consuming fire, whether in its eternal blessed- 
ness in heaven, or its angry wrath on earth, a 
willing sacrifice, to be its food and its satisfaction^ 



THE THRICE HOLY ONE. Ill 

as well as the revelation of its power to destroy and 
to save. And there is the Spirit of Holiness, the 
flames of that mighty fire spreading on every side, 
convicting and judging as the Spirit of Burning, and 
then transforming into its own brightness and holi- 
ness all that it can reach. All the relations of the 
Three Persons to each other and to us have their 
root and their meaning in the revelation of God as 
the Holy One. As we know and partake of Him, 
we shall know and partake of Holiness. 

And how shall we know Him ? Let us learn to 
know the Holiness of God as the seraphs do : in the 
worship of the Thrice Holy One. Let us with veiled 
faces join in the ceaseless song of adoration : ' Holy, 
holy, holy is the Lord of hosts.' Each time we medi- 
tate on the Word, each prayer to the Holy God, each 
act of faith in Christ the Holy One, each exercise 
of waiting dependence on the Holy Spirit, let it be 
in the spirit of worship : Holy, holy, holy. Let us 
learn to know the Holiness of God as Isaiah did. 
He was to be the chosen messenger to reveal and 
interpret to the people the name, the Holy One of 
Israel. His preparation was the vision that made 
him cry out, ' Woe is me ! for mine eyes have seen 
the King, the Lord of hosts.' Let us bow in 
silence before the Holy One, until our comeliness 
too be turned into corruption. And then let us 
believe in the cleansing fire from the altar, the 
touch of the live coals of the burning holiness, 
which not only consumes, but purges lips and heart 
to say, .' Here am I, send me.' Yes, let us worship, 



112 HOLY IN CHRIST, 

whether like the adoring seraphim, or like the 
trembling prophet, until we know that our service 
too is accepted, to tell forth the praise of the Thrice 
Holy One. 

Holy, holy, holy : if we are indeed to be the 
messengers of the Holy One, let us seek to enter 
fully into what this Thrice Holy means. Holy, the 
Father, God above us, High and Lifted up, whom no 
man hath seen or can see, whose holiness none dare 
approach, but who doth Himself in His Holiness 
draw nigh to make holy. Holy, the Son, God come 
down to us, revealing Divine Holiness in human life, 
maintaining it amid the suffering of death for us, 
and preparing a holy life and nature for His people. 
Holy, the Spirit, God in us, the Power of Holiness 
within us, reaching out to and embracing Christ, 
and transforming our inner life into the union and 
communion of Him in whom we are holy. Holy, 
holy, holy ! it is all holiness. It is only holiness 
— perfect holiness. This is Divine holiness : holi- 
ness hidden and unapproachable ; holiness mani- 
fested and maintained in human nature ; holiness 
communicated and made our very own. 

The mystery of the Holy Trinity is the mystery 
of the Christian life, the mystery of Holiness. The 
Three are One, and we need to enter ever more 
deeply into the truth that neither of the Three 
ever works separate or independent of the other. 
The Son reveals the Father, and the Father reveals 
the Son. The Father gives not Himself, but the 
Spirit : the Spirit speaks not of Himself, but cries 



THE THRICE HOLY ONE. 113 

Abba Father ! Christ is our Sanctification, our Life, 
our All : the fulness is in Him. And yet we have ever 
to bow our knees to the Father for Him to reveal 
Christ in us, for Him to establish us in Christ. 
And the Father does not this without the Spirit : 
so that we have to ask to be strengthened mightily 
by the Spirit, that Christ may dwell in us. Christ 
gives the Spirit to them that believe and love and 
obey ; the Spirit again gives Christ, formed within 
and dwelling in the heart. And so in each act of 
worship, and each step of growth, and each blessed 
experience of grace, all the Three Persons are 
actively engaged : the One is ever Three, the Three 
are ever One. 

"Would you apply this in the life of holiness, 
let faith in the Holy Trinity be a living practical 
reality. In every prayer to the Father to sanctify 
you, take up your position in Christ, and do it in 
the power of the Spirit within you. In every 
exercise of faith in Christ as your Sanctification, let 
your posture be that of prayer to the Father and 
trust in Him as He delights to honour the Son, and 
of quiet expectancy of the Spirit's working, through 
whom the Father glorifies the Son. In every sur- 
render of the soul to the sanctification of the Spirit, 
to His leading as the Spirit of Holiness, look to the 
Father who grants His mighty working, and who 
sanctifies through faith in the Son, and expect the 
Spirit's power to manifest itself in showing the will 
of God, and Jesus as your Sanctification. If for a 
time this appears at variance with the simplicity of 

H 



114 HOLY IN CHRIST. 

childlike faith and prayer, be assured that as God 
has thus revealed Himself, He will teach you so to 
worship and believe. And so the Holy, holy, holy 
will become the deep undertone of all our worship 
and all our life. 

Children of God ! called to be holy as He is 
holy, oh, come let us bow down and worship in 
His holy presence ! Come and veil the face : with- 
draw eye and mind from gazing on what passes 
knowledge, and let the soul be gathered into that 
inner stillness, in which the worship of the heavenly 
Sanctuary alone can be heard. Come and cover 
the feet : withdraw from the rush of work and 
haste, be it worldly or religious, and learn to 
worship. Come, and as you fall down in self-abase- 
ment, the glory of the Holy One will shine upon 
you. And as you hear and take up and sing the 
song, Holy, Holy, Holy, you will find how in such 
knowledge and worship of the Thrice Holy One is 
the power that makes you holy. 

Be holy, for I am holy. 



Holy, holy, holy, the Lord God Almighty ! 
which wast, and art, and art to come ! I worship 
Thee as the Triune God. "With face veiled and 
feet covered, I would bow in deep humility and 
silence, till Thy mercy lift me as on eagles' wings 
to behold Thy glory. 

Most merciful God ! who hast called me to be 



THE THRICE HOLY ONE. 115 

holy as Thou art holy, oh, reveal to me some- 
what of Thy Holiness ! As it shines upon me and 
strikes death into the creature and the flesh, may 
even the most involuntary taint of sin, and its 
slightest movement, become unbearable. As it 
shines and revives the hope of being partaker of 
Thy Holiness, may the confidence grow strong that 
Thou Thyself wilt make me holy, wilt even make 
me a messenger of Thy Holiness. 

Thrice Holy God ! I worship Thee as my God. 
Holy ! the Father ; holy and making holy ; making 
holy His own Son and sending Him into the world, 
that we might behold the glory of God in a human 
face, the face of Jesus Christ. Holy ! the Son ; the 
Holy One of God, fulfilling the will of the Father, 
and so making holy Himself that He might be our 
holiness. Holy ! the Spirit ; the Spirit of Holiness, 
making the Son and His Holiness our own, and so 
making us partakers of the Holiness of God. 
my God ! I bow down, and worship, and adore. 

May even now the worship of heaven that rests 
not day or night be the worship my soul renders 
Thee without ceasing. May its song be, down in the 
depths of the heart, the keynote of my life : Holy, 
Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty ! which wast, and 
art, and art to come. Amen. 



1. Thought always needs to distinguish and separate : in life alone there is 
perfect unity. The more we know the liuing God, the more we shall realize how 
troiiy the Three are One. In each act of One Person the other Two are present. 
There is not a prayer rises but. the Presence of the Holy Three is needed: 
through Christ, in the Spirit, we speak to the Father. 

2. In faith to apprehend this is to have the secret of holiness. The Hol$ 



116 HOLY IN CHRIST. 



God above us, ever giving and working ; the Holy One of God, the living gift, 
who has possession of us, in whom we are; the Holy Spirit, God within us, 
through whom the Father works, and the Son is revealed : this is the God who 
says, I am holy, I make holy. In the perfect unity of the work of the Three, 
holiness is found. 

3. No wonder that the love of the Father and the grace of the Son do not 
accomplish more, when the fellowship of the Holy Spirit is little understood 
or sought or accepted. The Holy Spirit is the fruit and crown of the Divine 
Revelation, through whom the Son and the Father come to us. if you would 
know God, if you would be holy, you must be taught and led of the Spirit. 

4. As often as you worship the Thrice Holy One, hearken if no voice be 
heard : Whom shall I send, and who will go for us ? Let the answer rise, Here 
am I, send me, and offer yourself to be a messenger of the holiness of God 
to those around you. 

5. When in meditation and worship you have sought to take in and express 
what God's word has taught, then comes the time for confessing how you 
know nothing, and for waiting on God to reveal Sifflgalfc 



HOLINESS AND HUMILITY. 117 



Thirteenth Day. 
HOLY IN CHEIST. 

holiness antr fgumtlttg* 

' Thus saith the High and Lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, 
whose name is Holy : I dwell in the High and Holy place, with 
him that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit 
of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones.' — 
Isa. lvii. 15. 

YEEY wonderful is the revelation we have in 
Isaiah of God, the Holy One, as the Eedeemer 
and the Saviour of His people. In the midst of 
the people whom He created and formed for Him- 
self, He will as the Holy One dwell, showing 
forth His power and His glory, filling them with 
joy and gladness. All these promises have, how- 
ever, reference to the people as a whole. Our 
text to-day reveals a new and specially beautiful 
feature of the Divine Holiness in its relation to the 
individual, the High and Lofty One, whose name 
is Holy, and whose only fit dwelling - place is 
eternity. He looks to the man who is of a humbe 
and contrite heart, with him will He dwell. God's 
Holiness is His condescending Love. As it is a 



118 HOLY IN CHRIST. 

consuming fire against all who exalt themselves 
before Him, it is to the spirit of the humble like 
the shining of the sun, heart-reviving and life-giving. 
The deep significance of this promise comes out 
clearly when we connect it with the other promises 
of New Testament times. The great feature of the 
New Covenant, in its superiority to the old, is this, 
that whereas in the law and its institution all was 
external, in the New the kingdom of God would 
be within. God's laws given and written into the 
heart, a new spirit put within us, God's own Spirit 
given to dwell within our spirit, and so the heart 
and the inner life fitted to be the temple and 
home of God; it is this constitutes the peculiar 
privilege of the ministration of the Spirit. Our 
text is perhaps the only one in which this indwell- 
ing of the Holy One, not among the people only, 
but in the heart of the individual believer, is 
clearly brought out. In this the two aspects of the 
Divine Holiness would reach their full manifesta- 
tion : I dwell in the High and Holy place, and with 
him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit. 
In His heaven above, the high and lofty place, 
and in our heart, contrite and humble, God has 
His home. God's Holiness is His glory that 
separates Him by an infinite distance, not only 
from sin, but even from the creature, lifting Him 
high above it. God's Holiness is His Love, drawing 
Him down to the sinner, that He may lift him into 
His fellowship and likeness, and make him holy as 
He is holy. The Holy One seeks the humble; the 



HOLINESS AND HUMILITY. 119 

humble find the Holy One : such are the two 
lessons we have to learn to-day. 

The Holy One seeks the humble. There is nothing 
that has such an attraction for God, that has such 
affinity with holiness, as a contrite and humble 
spirit. The reason is evident. There is no law in 
the natural and the spiritual world more simple, 
than that two bodies cannot at the same moment 
occupy the same space. Only so much as the 
new occupant can expel of what the space was filled 
with can it really possess. In man, self has posses- 
sion, and self-will the mastery, and there is no room 
for God. It is simply impossible for God to dwell 
or rule when self is on the throne. As long as, 
through the blinding influence of sin and self-love, 
even the believer is not truly conscious of the extent 
to which this self-will reigns, there can be no true 
contrition or humility. But as it is discovered by 
God's Spirit, and the soul sees how it has just been 
self that has been secretly keeping out God, with 
what shame it is broken down, and how it longs to 
break utterly away from self, that God may have 
His place ! It is this brokenness, and continued 
breaking down, that is expressed by the word 
contrition. And as the soul sees what folly and 
guilt it has been, by its secret honouring of self, to 
keep the Holy One from the place which He alone 
has a right to, and which He would so blessedly 
have filled, it casts itself down in utter self-abase- 
ment, with the one desire to be nothing, and to give 
God the place and the praise that is His due. 



120 HOLY IN CHRIST. 

Such breaking down and humiliation is painful 
Its intense reality consists in this, that the soul can 
see nothing in itself to trust or hope in. And 
least of all can it imagine that it should be an 
object of Divine complacency, or a fit vessel for 
the Divine blessing. And yet just this is the 
message which the Word of the Lord brings to our 
faith. It tells us that the Holy One, who dwells in 
the High and Lofty place, is seeking and preparing 
for Himself a dwelling here on this earth. It tells 
us, just what the truly contrite and humble never 
could imagine, and even now can hardly believe, 
that it is even, that it is only, with such that He 
will dwell. These are they in whom God can be 
glorified, in whom there is room for Him to take 
the place of self and to fill the broken place with 
Himself. The Holy One seeks the humble. Just 
when we see that there is nothing in us to admire 
or rest in, God sees in us everything to admire 
and to rest in, because there is room for Himself. 
The lowly one is the home of the Holy One. 

The humble find the Holy One. Just when the 
consciousness of sin and weakness, and the discovery 
of how much of self there is, makes you fear that 
you can never be holy, the Holy One gives Himself. 
Not as you look at self, and seek to know whether 
now you are contrite and humble enough — no, but 
when no longer looking at self, because you have 
given up all hope of seeing anything in it but sin, 
you look up to the Holy One, you will see how 
His promise is your only hope. It is in faith that 



HOLINESS AND HUMILITY. 121 

the Holy One is revealed to the contrite souL 
Faith is ever the opposite of what we see and feel ; 
it looks to God alone. And it believes that in its 
deepest consciousness of unholiness, and its fear that 
it never can be holy, God, the Holy One, who 
makes holy, is near as Eedeemer and Saviour. 
And it is content to be low, in the consciousness 
of un worthiness and emptiness, and yet to rejoice 
in the assurance that God Himself does take 
possession and revive the heart of the contrite one. 
Happy the soul who is willing at once to learn the 
lesson that, all along, it is going to be the simultane- 
ous experience of weakness and power, of emptiness 
and filling, of deep humiliation and the wonderful 
indwelling of the Holy One. 

This is indeed the deep mystery of the Divine 
life. To human reason it is a paradox. When 
Paul says of himself, e as dying, and behold we live ; 
as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as having nothing, 
yet possessing all things,' he only gives expression 
to the law of the kingdom, that as self is displaced 
and man becomes nothing, God will become all. 
Side by side with deepest sense of nothingness and 
weakness, the sense of infinite riches and the joy 
unspeakable can fill the heart. However deep and 
blessed the experience becomes of the nearness, the 
blessing, the love, the actual indwelling of the Holy 
One, it is never an indwelling in the old self ; it is 
ever a Divine Presence humbling self to make place 
for God alone to be exalted. The power of Christ's 
death, the fellowship of His cross, works each 



122 HOLY IN CHRIST. 

moment side by side with the power and the joy of 
His resurrection. ' He that humbleth himself shall 
be exalted ; ' in the blessed life of faith the humi- 
liation and the exaltation are simultaneous, each 
dependent on the other. 

The humble finds the Holy ; and when he has 
found, the possession only humbles all the more. 
Not that there is no danger or temptation of the 
flesh exalting itself in the possession, but, once 
knowing the danger, the humble soul seeks for 
grace to fear continually, with a fear that only 
clings more firmly to God alone. Never for a mo- 
ment imagine that you attain a state in which self 
or the flesh are absolutely dead. No ; by faith you 
enter into and abide in a fellowship with Jesus, in 
whom they are crucified ; abiding in Him, you are 
free from their power, but only as you believe, and, 
in believing, have gone out of self and dwell in 
Jesus. Therefore, the more abundant God's grace 
becomes, and the more blessed the indwelling of the 
Holy One, keep so much the lower. Your danger is 
greater, but your Help is now nearer: be content in 
trembling to confess the danger, it will make you 
bold in faith to claim the victory. 

Believers, who profess to be nothing, and to trust 
in grace alone, I pray you, do listen to the wondrous 
message. The High and Lofty One, whose name is 
Holy, and who dwells in the Holy Place, seeks 
a dwelling here on earth. Will you give it 
Him ? Will you not fall down in the dust, that 
He may find in you the humble heart He loves 



HOLINESS AND HUMILITY. 123 

to dwell in ? Will yon not now believe that even 
in you, however low and broken you feel, He doth 
delight to make His dwelling ? Oh, this is the 
path to holiness ! be humble, and the holy nearness 
and presence of God in you will be your holiness. 
As you hear the command, Be holy, as I am holy, 
let faith claim the promise, and answer, I will 
be holy, Most Holy God ! if Thou, the Holy One, 
wilt dwell with me. 

BE HOLY, AS I AM HOLY. 



Lord ! Thou art the High and Lofty One, whose 
Name is Holy. And yet Thou speakest, ' I dwell 
in the high and holy place, and with him that is of 
a contrite and humble spirit/ Yes, Lord! when the 
soul takes the low place, and has low thoughts of 
itself, that it feels it is nothing, Thou dost love to 
come and comfort, to dwell with it and revive it. 

my God ! my creature nothingness humbles 
me ; my many transgressions humble me ; my innate 
sinfulness humbles me ; but this humbles me most 
of all, Thine infinite condescension, and the ineffable 
indwelling Thou dost vouchsafe. It is Thy Holiness, 
in Christ bearing our sin, Thy Holy Love bearing 
with our sin, and consenting to dwell in us ; 
God ! it is this love that passeth knowledge that 
humbles me. I do beseech Thee, let it do its 
work, until self hides its head and flees away at the 
presence of Thy glory, and Thou alone art all. 

Holy Lord God! I pray Thee to humble me. 



124 HOLY IN CHKIST, 

Didst Thou not of old meet Thy servants, and show 
Thyself unto them until they fell upon their faces 
and feared ? Thou knowest, my God ! I have no 
humility which I can bring Thee. In my blessed 
Saviour, who humbled Himself in the form of a 
servant, and unto the death of the cross, I hide 
myself. In Him, in His spirit and likeness, I 
would live before Thee. "Work Thou it in me, and 
as I am dead to self in Him, and His cross makes 
me nothing, let Thy holy indwelling revive and 
quicken me. Amen. 

1. Lowliness and holiness. Keep fast hold of the intimate connection. 
Lowliness is taking the place that becomes me; holiness, giving God the 
place that becomes Him. If I be nothing before Him, and God be all to me, I 
am in the sure path of holiness. Lowliness is holiness, because it gives all 
the glory to God. 

2. 'Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.' 
These first words of the Master when He opened His lips to proclaim the 
Kingdom, are often the last in the hearts of His disciples. ' The Kingdom is 
in the Holy Ghost;' to the poor in spirit, those who know they have nothing 
that is really spiritual, the Holy Spirit comes to search them. The poor in 
spirit are the Kingdom of the Saints: in them the Holy Spirit reveals the 
King. 

3. Many strive hard to be humble with God, but with men they maintain their 
rights, and nourish self. Remember that the great school of humility before 
God, is to accept the humbling of man. Christ sanctified Himself in accept- 
ing the humiliation and injustice which evil men laid upon Him. 

4. Humility never sees its own beauty, because it refuses to look to itself: 
it only wonders at the condescension of the Holy God, and rejoices in the 
humility of Jesus, God's Holy One. 

5. The link between holiness and humility is indwelling. The Lofty One, 
whose name is Holy, dwells with the contrite one. And where He dwells is 
the Holy Place, 



THE HOLY ONE OF GOD. 125 



Fourteenth Day. 



HOLY IN CHEIST. 

•Therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee 
shall be called the Son of God.' — Ltjke i. 35. 

* We have believed and know that Thou art the Holy One of 
GodS— John vi. 69. 

1 nnHE holy one of the Lord' — only once (Ps. cvi. 
JL 16) the expression is found in the Old 
Testament. It is spoken of Aaron, in whom 
holiness, as far as it could then be revealed, had 
found its most complete embodiment. The title 
waited for its fulfilment in Him who alone, in His 
own person, could perfectly show forth the holiness of 
God on earth — Jesus the Son of the Father. In Him 
we see holiness, as Divine, as human, as our very own. 
1. In Him we see wherein that Incomparable 
Excellence of the Divine Nature consists. ' Thou 
lovest righteousness, and hatest iniquity, therefore 
God, even Thy God, hath anointed Thee with the 
oil of gladness above Thy fellows/ God's infinite 
hatred of sin, and His maintenance of the Eight, 
might appear to have little moral worth, as being a 



126 HOLY IN CHRIST. 

necessity of His nature. In the Son we see Divine 
Holiness tested. He is tried and tempted. He 
suffers, being tempted. He proves that Holiness 
has indeed a moral worth : it is ready to make 
any sacrifice, yea to give up life and cease to be, 
rather than consent to sin. In giving Himself to 
die, rather than yield to the temptation of sin ; in 
giving Himself to die, that the Father's righteous 
judgment may be honoured ; Jesus proved how 
Eighteousness is an element of the Divine Holiness, 
and how the Holy One is sanctified in Eighteousness. 
But this is only one side of Holiness. The fire 
that consumes also purifies : it makes partakers of 
its own beautiful Light-nature all that is capable of 
assimilation. So Divine Holiness not only maintains 
its own purity ; it communicates it too. Herein 
was Jesus indeed seen to be the Holy One of God, 
that He never said, ' Stand by, for I am holier than 
thou/ His holiness proved itself to be the very 
incarnation of Him who had spoken, 'Thus saith 
the High and Lofty One, whose Name is Holy: 
I dwell in the High and Holy place, and with him 
who is of a contrite spirit.' In Him was seen 
the affinity holiness has for all that is lost and 
helpless and sinful. He proved that holiness is not 
only the energy which in holy anger separates 
itself from all that is impure, but which in holy 
love separates to itself even what is most sinful, to 
save and to bless. In Him we see how the Divine 
Holiness is the harmony of Infinite Eighteousness 
with Infinite Love. 



THE HOLY ONE OF GOD. 127 

2. Such is the Divine aspect of the character of 
Christ, as He shows in human form what God's 
Holiness is. But there is another aspect, to us no 
less interesting and important. We not only want 
to know how God is holy, but how man must act 
to be holy as God is holy. Jesus came to teach us 
that it was possible to be a man, and yet to have 
the life of God dwelling in us. We ordinarily 
think that the glory and the infinite Perfection of 
Deity are the proper setting in which the beauty 
of holiness is to be seen : Jesus proved the perfect 
adaptation and suitability of human nature for 
showing forth that which is the essential glory of 
Deity. He showed us how, in choosing and doing 
the will of God, and making it his own will, man 
may truly be holy as God is holy. 

The value of this aspect of the Incarnation 
depends upon our realizing intensely the true 
humanity of our Lord The awful separating and 
purifying process that is ever being carried on in 
the fiery furnace of the Divine Holiness, ever con- 
suming and ever assimilating, we expect to see in 
Him in the struggles of a truly human will. 
Holiness, to be truly human, must not only be a 
gift, but an acquirement. Coming from God, it 
must be accepted and personally appropriated in 
the voluntary surrender of all that is not in 
accordance with it. In Jesus, as He distinctly 
gave up His own will, and did and suffered 
the Father's will, we have the revelation of 
what human holiness is, and how truly man, 



128 HOLY IN CHRIST. 

through the unity of will, can be holy as God is 
holy. 

3. But what avails that we have seen in Jesus 
that a man can be holy ? His example were 
indeed a mockery if He show us not the way, and 
give us not the power, to become like Himself. To 
bring us this, was indeed the supreme object of the 
Incarnation. The Divine nature of Christ did not 
simply make His humanity partaker of its holiness, 
leaving Him still nothing more than an individual 
man. His Divinity gave the human holiness He 
wrought out, the holy human nature which He 
perfected, an infinite value and power of communica- 
tion. With Him a new life, the Eternal Life, was 
grafted into the stem of humanity. For all who 
believe in Him, He sanctified Himself, that they 
themselves might also be sanctified in truth. 
Because His death was the great triumph of His 
obedience to the will of the Father, it broke for 
ever the dominion of sin, it atoned for our guilt, 
and won for Him from the Father the power to 
make His people partakers of His own life and 
holiness. In His Eesurrection and Ascension 
the power of the New Life, and its right to 
universal dominion, were made manifest, and He 
is now in full truth the Holy One of God, holding 
in Himself as Head the power of a Holiness, at 
once Divine and human, to communicate to every 
member of His body. 

The Holy One of God ! in a fulness of meaning 
that passeth knowledge, in spirit and in truth, Jesus 



THE HOLY ONE OF GOD. 129 

now bears this title. He is now the One Holy 
One whom God sees, of such an infinite compass 
and power of holiness, that He can be holiness to 
each of His brethren. And even as He is to God 
the Holy One, in whom He delights, and for whose 
sake He delights in all who are in Him, so Christ 
may now be to us too the One Holy One in whom 
we too may delight, in whom the Holiness of God 
is become ours. ' We have believed and know that 
Thou art the Holy One of God/ — blessed they who 
can say this, and know themselves to be holy in 
Christ. 

In speaking of the mystery of the Holy Trinity, 
we saw how Christ stands midway between the 
Father and the Spirit, as the point of union in which 
they meet. In the Son, * the very image of His 
substance ' (Heb. i. 3), we have the objective revela- 
tion of Deity, the Divine Holiness embodied and 
brought nigh. In the Holy Spirit we have the 
revelation subjectively, the Divine Holiness entering 
our inmost being and revealing itself there. And 
the work of the Holy Spirit is to reveal and glorify 
Christ as the Holy One of God, as He takes of His 
Holiness and makes it ours. He shows us how all 
is in Christ ; how Christ is all for us ; how we are 
in Christ ; and how, as a living Saviour, Christ 
through His Spirit takes and keeps charge of us and 
our life of holiness. He makes Christ indeed to 
be to us the Holy One of God. 

My Brother ! wouldst thou be holy, wouldst thou 
know God's way of holiness— -learn to know Christ 

i 



130 HOLY IN CHRIST. 

as the Holy One of God. Thou art in Him c holy in 
Christ/ Thou hast been placed by an act of Divine 
Power — and that same Power keeps thee there, — 
in Christ, planted and rooted in that Divine fulness 
of life and holiness which there is in Him. His 
Holy Presence, and the power of His eternal life, 
surround thee : let the Holy Spirit reveal this to 
thee. The Holy Spirit is within thee as the power 
of Christ and His life. Secretly, silently, but 
mightily, if thou wilt look to the Father for His 
working, will He strengthen the faith that thou 
art in Christ, and that the Divine life which thus 
encircles thee on every side will enter in and take 
possession of thee. Study and pray to believe and 
realize that it is in Christ as the Holy One of God, in 
Christ in whom the Holiness of God is prepared for 
thee as a holy nature and holy living, that thou 
art, and that thou mayest abide. 

And then remember, also, that this Christ is thy 
Saviour, the most patient and compassionate of 
teachers. Study holiness in the light of His 
countenance, looking up into His face. He came 
from heaven for the very purpose of making thee holy. 
His love and power are more than thy slowness and 
sinfulness. Do learn to think of holiness as the 
inheritance prepared for thee, as the power of a new 
life which Jesus waits and lives to dispense. Just 
think of it as all in Him, and of its possession as 
being dependent upon the possession of Himself. 
And as the disciples, though they scarce understood 
what they confessed, or knew whither the Lord was 



THE HOLY ONE OF GOD. 131 

leading them, became His saints, His holy ones, in 
virtue of their intense attachment to Him, so wilt 
thou find that to love Jesus fervently, and obey 
Him simply, is the sure path to holiness and the 
fulness of the Holy Spirit. 

Be ye holy, as I am holy. 



Most Holy Lord God ! I do bless Thee that Thy 
beloved Son, whom Thou didst sanctify and send 
into the world, is now to us the Holy One of God. 
I beseech Thee that my inner life may so be en- 
lightened by the Spirit that I may in faith fully 
know what this means. 

May I know Him as the revelation of Thy Holi- 
ness, the incarnation in human nature, even unto 
the death, of Thine infinite and unconquerable 
hatred of sin, as of Thy amazing love to the sinner. 
May my soul be filled with great fear and trust of 
Thee. 

May I know Him as the exhibition of the 
Holiness in which we are now to walk before Thee. 
He lived in Thy holy will. May I know Him as 
He wrought out that holiness, to be communicated 
to us in a new human nature, making it possible for 
us to live a holy life. 

May I know Him as Thou hast placed me in 
Him in heaven, holy in Christ, and as I may abide 
in Him by faith. 

May I know Him, as He dwells in me, the Holy 
One of God on the throne of my heart, breathing 



132 HOLY IX CHRIST. 

His Holy Spirit and maintaining His holy rule. So 
shall I live holy in Christ. 

my Father ! it pleased Thee that in Thy Son 
should all the fulness dwell. In Him are hid all 
the treasures of wisdom and knowledge ; in Him 
dwell the unsearchable riches of grace and holiness. 
I beseech Thee, reveal Him to me, reveal Him in 
me, that I may not have to satisfy myself with 
thoughts and desires without the reality, but that 
in the power of an endless life I may know Him, 
and be known of Him, the Holy One of God. 
Amen. 



1. In the holiness of Jesus we see what ours must be : righteousness, that 
hates sin and gives everything to have it destroyed ; love, that seeks the 
sinner and gives everything to have him saved. ' Whosoever doeth not 
righteousness is not of God, neither he that loveth not his brother.' 

2. It is a solemn thought that we may be studying earnestly to know what 
holiness is, and yet have little of it, because we have little of Jesus. It is a 
blessed thought that a man may directly be little occupied with the thought of 
holiness, and yet have much of it, because he is full of Jesus. 

3. We need the whole of what God teaches on holiness. We need still more 
to be ever returning to the living centre where God imparts holiness. Jesus is 
the Holy One of God : to have Him truly, to love Him fervently, to trust and 
obey Him, to be in Him — this makes us holy. 

4. Your holiness is thus treasured up in this Divine, Almighty, and most 
gentle Saviour— surely there need to be no fear that He will not be ready or 
able to make you holy. 

5. With such a Sanctifier, how comes it that so many seekers after holi- 
ness fail so sadly, and know so little of the joy of a holy life ? I am sure 
it is with very many this one thing ; they seek to grasp and hold this Christ 
in their own strength, and know not how it is the Holy Spirit within them who 
must be waited for to reveal this Divine Being, the Holy One of God, in 
their hearts. 



THE HOLY SPIRIT. 133 



Fifteenth Day. 



HOLT IN CHRIST. 

STije f&olg Spirit 

1 Bnt this spake He of the Spirit, which they that believed on 
Him were to receive : for the Holy Spirit was not yet : because 
Jesus was not yet glorified.' — John vii. 39. 

«The Comforter, even the Holy Spirit, whom the Father 
will send in my name, He shall teach you all things.' — John 
xiv. 26. 

' God chose you to salvation in sanctification of the Spirit, 
and belief of the truth.'— 2 Thess. ii. 13. (See 1 Pet. i. 2.) 

IT has sometimes been said, that while the Holiness 
of God stands out more prominently in the Old 
Testament, in the New it has to give way to the 
revelation of His love. The remark could hardly 
be made if it were fully realized that the Spirit is 
God, and that when He takes up the epithet Holy 
as His own proper name, it is to teach us that now 
the Holiness of God is to come nearer than ever, 
and to be specially revealed as the power that 
makes us holy. In the Holy Spirit, God the Holy 
One of Israel, and He who was the Holy One of 
God, come nigh for the fulfilment of the promise, 
'I am the Lord that make you holy/ The unseen 



134 HOLY IN CHEIST. 

and unapproachable holiness of God had been 
revealed and brought near in the life of Christ 
Jesus ; all that hindered our participation in it had 
been removed by His death. The name of Holy 
Spirit teaches us that it is specially the Spirit's 
work to impart it to us and make it our own. 

Try and realize the meaning of this ; the epithet 
that through the whole Old Testament has belonged 
to the Holy God, is now appropriated to that Spirit 
which is within you. The words, and the Divine 
realities the words express, Holy and Spirit, are now 
inseparably and eternally united. You can only 
have as much of the Spirit as you are willing to 
have of holiness. You can only have as much 
holiness as you have of the Spirit. 

There are some who pray for the Spirit because 
they long to have His light and joy and strength. 
And yet their prayers bring little increase of blessing 
or power. It is because they do not rightly know 
or desire Him as the Holy Spirit. His burning 
purity, His searching and convicting light, His 
making dead of the deeds of the body, of self with 
its will and its power, His leading into the fellow- 
ship of Jesus as He gave up His will and His life 
to the Father, — of all this they have not thought. 
The Spirit cannot come in power on them because 
they receive Him not as the Holy Spirit, in sanctifi- 
cation of the Spirit. At times, in seasons of revival, 
as among the Corinthians and Galatians, He may 
indeed come with His gifts and mighty workings, 
while His sanctifying power i§ but Uttk manifest 



THE HOLY SPIRIT. 135 

(1 Cor. xiv. 4, xiii. 8, iii. 1-3 ; Gal. iii. 3, v. 15-26.) 
But unless that sanctifying power be acknowledged 
and accepted, His gifts will be lost. His gifts coming 
on us are but meant to prepare the way for the 
sanctifying power within us. We must take the 
lesson to heart ; we can have as much of the Spirit 
as we are willing to have of His Holiness. Be 
full of the Spirit, must mean to us, Be fully holy. 

The converse is equally true. We can only have 
so much holiness as we have of the Spirit. Some 
souls do very earnestly seek to be holy, but it is 
very much in their own strength. They will read 
books and listen to addresses most earnestly ; they 
will use every effort to lay hold of every thought, 
and act out every advice. And yet they must 
confess that they are still very much strangers to 
the true, deep rest and joy and power of abiding in 
Christ, and being holy in Him. They sought for 
holiness more than for the Spirit. They must learn 
how even all the holiness which is so near and clear 
in Christ, is beyond our reach, except as the Holy 
Spirit imparts it. They must learn to pray for 
Him and His mighty strengthening (Eph. iii. 16), to 
believe for Him (John iv. 14, vii. 37), in faith to yield 
to Him as indwelling (1 Cor. iii. 14, vi. 19). They 
must learn to cease from self-effort in thinking and 
believing, in willing and in running ; to hope in God, 
and wait patiently for Him. He will by His Holy 
Spirit make us holy. Be holy means, Be filled with 
the Spirit. 

If we inquire more closely how it is that this 



136 HOLY IN CHRIST. 

Holy Spirit makes holy, the answer is, — He reveals 
and imparts the Holiness of Christ. Scripture tells 
us : Christ is jnade unto us sanctification. He 
sanctified Himself for us, that we ourselves might 
also be sanctified in truth. We have been sanc- 
tified through the offering of the body of Jesus 
Christ once for all. We are sanctified in Christ 
Jesus. The whole living Christ is just a treasury 
of holiness for man. In His life on earth He 
exchanged the Divine Holiness He possessed into 
the current coin needed for this human earthly life, 
obedience to the Father, and humility, and love, 
and zeal. As God, He has a sufficiency of it for 
every moment of the life of every believer. And 
yet, it is all beyond our reach, except as the Holy 
Spirit brings it to us and inwardly communicates it. 
But this is the very work for which He bears the 
Divine Name, the Holy Spirit, to glorify Jesus, the 
Holy One of God, within us, and so make us partakers 
of His Holiness. He does it by revealing Christ, 
so that we begin to see what is in Him. He does 
it by discovering the deep unholiness of our nature 
(Eom. vii. 14-23). He does it by mightily 
strengthening us to believe, to receive Jesus 
Himself as our life. He does it by leading us 
to utter despair of self, to absolute surrender of 
obedience to Jesus as Lord, to the assured confidence 
of faith in the power of an indwelling Christ. He 
does it by, in the secret silent depths of the heart 
and life, imparting the dispositions and graces of 
Christ, so that from the inner centre of our life, 



THE HOLY SPIRIT. 137 

which has been renewed and sanctified in Christ, 
holiness should flow out and pervade all to the utmost 
circumference. Where the desire has once been 
awakened, and the delight in the law of God after 
the inward man been created, there, as the Spirit of 
this life in Christ Jesus, He makes free from the 
law of sin and death in the members, He leads into 
the glorious liberty of the sons of God. 

And if we ask once more how the working of this 
Holy Spirit, who thus makes holy, is to be secured, 
the answer is very simple and clear. He is the 
Spirit of the Holy Father, and of Christ, the Holy 
One of God : from them He must be received. 
1 He showed me a river of water of life proceeding 
out of the throne of God and the Lamb.' Jesus 
speaks of ' the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will 
send in my Name/ He taught us to ask the 
Father. Paul prays for the Ephesians : ' I bow 
my knees to the Father, that He may grant unto 
you, according to the riches of His glory, that ye 
may be strengthened with might by His Spirit .in 
the inner man.' It is as we look to God in His 
Holiness, and all its revelation from Creation down- 
ward, and see how the Spirit now flows out from 
the throne of His Holiness as the water of life, 
that our hope will be awakened that God will give 
Him to work mightily in us. And as we then see 
Jesus revealing that holiness in human nature, 
rending the veil in His atoning death, that the 
Spirit from the Holiest of all may come forth and 
as the Holy Spirit be His representative, making 



138 HOLY IN CHRIST. 

Him present within us, we shall become confident 
that faith in Jesus will bring the fulness of the 
Spirit. As He told us to ask the Father, He told 
us to believe in Himself. ' He that believeth in 
me, rivers of living water shall flow out of him.' 
Let us bow to the Father in the name of Christ, 
His Son ; let us believe very simply in the Son as 
Him in whom we are well-pleasing to the Father, 
and through whom the Father's love and blessing 
reach us, and we may be sure the Spirit, who is 
already within us, will, as the Holy Spirit, do His 
work in ever-increasing power. The mystery of 
holiness is the mystery of the Trinity : as we bow 
to the Father, believing in the Son, the Holy 
Spirit will work. And we shall see the true 
meaning of what God spake in Israel : ' I am holy' 
thus speaks the Father ; ' Be holy ' as my Son and in 
my Son ; ' I make holy ' through the Spirit of my 
Son dwelling in you. Let our souls worship and 
cry out, ' Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God of hosts/ 
The Holy Spirit. All true knowledge of the 
Father in His adorable Holiness, and of the Son in 
His, which is meant to be ours, and all participation 
of it, depend upon our life in the Spirit, upon our 
receiving Him in power from the Father through 
the Son. Oh, what can it be that, with such a 
Thrice Holy God, His Holiness does not more cover 
His Church and children ? The Holy Spirit is 
among us, is in us : it must be we grieve and resist 
Him. If you would not do so, at once bow the knee 
to the Father, that He may grant you the Spirits 



THE HOLY SPIRIT. 139 

mighty workings in the inner man. Believe that 
the Holy Spirit, bearer to you of all the Holiness of 
God and of Jesus, is within you. Let Him take 
the place of self, with its thoughts and efforts. Set 
your soul still before God, for Him in holy silence 
to give you wisdom ; rest in emptiness and poverty 
of spirit in the faith that He will work in His own 
way. As Divine as is the holiness that Jesus 
brings, so Divine is the way in which the Holy 
Spirit communicates it. Yield yourself day by 
day in growing dependence and obedience. Let the 
fear of the Holy One be on you : sanctify the Lord 
God in your heart : let Him be your fear and 
dread. Fear not only sin : fear above all self, as it 
thrusts itself in before God with its service. Let 
self die, in refusing and denying its work : let the 
Holy Spirit, in quietness and dependence, in the 
surrender of obedience and trust, have the rule, the 
free disposal of every faculty. Wait for Him — He 
can, He will in power reveal and impart the Holi- 
ness of the Father and the Son. 1 

BE HOLY, AS I AM HOLY. 



Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of hosts ! the whole 
earth is full of Thy glory ! Let that glory fill the 

1 I cannot say how deeply I feel that one of the great wants of 
believers is that they do not know the Holy Spirit, who is within 
them, and thereby lose the blessed life He wonld work in them. 
If it please God, I hope that the next volume of this series may 
be on The Spirit of Christ. May the Father give me a message that 
shall help His children to know what the Holy Spirit can be to 
them* 



140 HOLY IN CHBIST. 

heart of Thy child, as he bows before Thee. I 
come now to drink of the river of the water of life 
that flows from under the throne of God and of the 
Lamb. Glory be to God and to the Lamb for the 
gift that hath not entered into the heart of man 
to conceive — the gift of the Holy indwelling Spirit. 

my Father ! in the name of Jesus I ask Thee 
that I may be strengthened with might by Thy 
Spirit in the inner man. Teach me, I pray Thee, 
to believe that Thou givest Him, to accept and 
expect Him to fill and rule my whole inner being. 
Teach me to give up to Him, not to will or to run, 
not to think or to work in my strength, but in 
quiet confidence to wait and to know that He 
works in me. Teach me what it is to have 
no confidence in the flesh, and to serve Thee 
in the Spirit. Teach me what it is in all things 
to be led by Thy Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Thy 
Holiness. 

And grant, gracious Father, that through Him I 
may hear Thee speak and reveal Thyself to me in 
power : I am holy. May He glorify to me and in 
me, Jesus in whom Thy command ' Be holy ' hath 
been so blessedly fulfilled on my behalf. And let 
the Holy Spirit give me the anointing and the seal- 
ing which bring the perfect assurance that in Him 
Thy promise is being gloriously fulfilled, ' I make 
you holy/ Amen. 



1. It is universally admitted that the Holy Spirit has not, in the teaching oj 
the Church or the faith of believers, that place of honour and power, which 
becomes Him as the Revealer of the Father and the Son. Seek a deep con- 



THE HOLY SPIRIT. 141 

w'ction that without the Holy Spirit the clearest teaching on holiness, 
the most fervent desires, the most blessed experiences euen, will only be 
temporary, will produce no permanent result, will bring no abiding rest. 

2. The Holy Spirit dwells within, and works within, in the hidden deep of 
your nature. Seek above everything the clear and habitual assurance that He 
is within you, doing His work. 

3. To this end, deny self and its work in serving God. Your own power to 
think and pray and believe and strive — lay it all down expressly and dis- 
tinctly in God's presence ; claim, accept, and believe in the hidden workings of 
the indwelling Spirit. 

4. As the Son ever spake of the Father, so the Spirit ever points to 
Christ. The soul that yields itself to the Spirit will of Him learn to know 
how Christ is our holiness, how we can always abide in Christ our Sanctifica- 
tion. What a vain effort it has often been without the Spirit! 'As the 
anointing taught you, ye abide in Him.' 

5. In the temple of thine heart, beloved believer, there is a secret place 
within the veil, where dwells, often all unknown, the Spirit of God. Do bow 
in deep reverence before the Father, and ask that He may work mightily. 
Expect the Spirit to do His work : He will make Thy inner man a fit home. Thy 
heart a throne, for Jesus, and reveal Him there- 



142 HOLY IN CHRIST. 



Sixteenth Day. 
HOLY IN CHEIST. 

holiness anli Ertttij. 

'Make them holy in the truth: Thy word is truth.'— J om* 
xvii. 17. 

'God chose you unto salvation in sanctifi 'cation and belief of 
the truth. 1 — 2 Tbess. ii 12. 

THE chief means of sanctification that God uses 
is His word. And yet how much there is 
of reading and studying, of teaching and preaching 
the word, that has almost no effect in making men 
holy. It is not the word that sanctifies ; it is 
God Himself who alone can sanctify. Nor is 
it simply through the word that God does it, but 
through the truth which is in the word. As a means 
the word is of unspeakable value, as the vessel 
which contains the truth, if God use it ; as a means 
it is of no value, if God does not use it. Let us 
strive to connect God's Holy Word with the Holy 
God Himself. God sanctifies in the truth through 
His word. 

Jesus had just said, ' The words which Thou 
gavest me, I have given them/ Just try and 



HOLINESS AND TRUTH. 143 

realize what that means. Think of that great 
transaction in eternity: the Infinite Being, whom 
we call God, giving His vjords to His Son ; in His 
words opening up His heart, communicating His 
mind and will, revealing Himself and all His 
purpose and love. In a Divine power and reality 
passing all conception, God gave Christ His words. 
In the same living power Christ gave them to His 
disciples, all full of a Divine life and energy to 
work in their hearts, as they were able to receive 
them. And just as in the words of a man .on 
earth we expect to find all the wisdom or all the 
goodness there is in him, so the word of the Thrice 
Holy One is all alive with the Holiness of God. 
All the holy fire, alike of His burning zeal and 
His burning love, dwells in His words. 

And yet men can handle these words, and study 
them, and speak them, and be entire strangers 
to their holiness, or their power to make holy. It 
is God Himself, the Holy One, who must make 
holy through the word. Every seed, in which the 
life of a tree is contained, has around it a husk or 
shell, which protects and hides the inner life. Only 
where the seed finds a place in congenial soil, and 
the husk is burst and removed, can the seed germi- 
nate and grow up. And it is only where there is a 
heart in harmony with God's Holiness, longing for it, 
yielding itself to it, that the word will really make 
holy. It is the heart that is not content with the 
word, but seeks the Living, Holy One in the word ; 
to which He will reveal the truth, and in it Himself. 



144 HOLY IN CHEIST. 

It is the word given to us by Christ as God gave it 
Him, and received by us as it was by Him, to rule 
and fill our life, which has power to make holy. 

But we must notice very specially how our Saviour 
says, sanctify them, not in the word, but in the truth. 
Just as in man there is body, soul, and spirit, so in 
truth too. There is first ivord-truth ; a man may 
have the correct form of words while he does not 
really apprehend the truth they contain. Then there 
is thought-truth; there may be a clear intellectual 
apprehension of a truth without the experience of 
its power. The Bible speaks of truth as a living 
reality: this is the life-truth in which the very 
spirit of the truth we profess has entered and 
possessed our inner being. Christ calls Himself 
the truth : He is said to be full of grace and 
truth. The Divine life and grace are in Him 
as an actually substantial excellence and reality. 
He not only acts upon us by thoughts and motives, 
but communicates as a reality the eternal life He 
brought for us from the Father. The Holy Spirit 
is called the Spirit of truth ; what He imparts is all 
real and actual, the very substance of unseen things ; 
He guides into the truth, not thought-truth or doctrine 
only, but life-truth, the personal possession of the 
truth as it is in Jesus. As the Spirit of truth He 
is the Spirit of Holiness ; the life of God, which is 
His Holiness, He brings to us as an actual possession. 

It is now of this living truth, which dwells in 
the word, as the seed-life dwells in the husk, that 
Jesus says, ' Make them holy in the truth : Thy 



HOLINESS AND TRUTH. 145 

word is truth.' He would have us mark the inti- 
mate connection, as well as the wide difference, 
between the word and the truth. The connection 
is one willed by God and meant to be inseparable, 
' Thy word is truth ; ' with God they are one. But 
not with man. Just as there were men in close 
contact and continual intercourse with Jesus, to 
whom He was only a man and nothing more, so 
there are Christians who know and understand the 
word, and yet are strangers to its true spiritual 
power. They have the letter but not the spirit ; 
the truth comes to them in word but not in power. 
The word does not make them holy, because they 
hold it not in spirit and in truth. To others, on the 
contrary, who know what it is to receive the truth 
in the love of it, who yield themselves, in all their 
dealings with the word, to the Spirit of truth who 
dwells in it and in them too, the word comes indeed 
as truth, as a Divine reality, communicating and 
working what it speaks of. And it is of such a use 
of the word that the Saviour says, ' Make them 
holy in the truth : Thy word is truth.' As the 
word which God gave Him was all in the power of 
the eternal Life and Love and Will of God, the 
revelation and communication of the Father's pur- 
pose, as God's word was truth to Him and in Him, 
so it can be in us. And as we thus receive it, we 
are made holy in this truth. 

And what now are the lessons we have to learn 
here for the path of Holiness ? The first is : Let us 
see to it that in all our intercourse with God's 

K 



146 HOLY IN CHRIST. 

Blessed Word we rest content with nothing short of 
the experience of it, as truth of God, as spirit and 
as power. Jesus said, ' If ye abide in my word, ye 
shall know the truth/ It is as we live in the 
words of Jesus, in love and obedience, keeping and 
doing them, that the truth from heaven there is in 
them will unfold itself to us. Christ is the Truth ; 
in Him the love and grace, the very life of God, 
has come to earth as a substantial existence, some- 
thing new that was never on earth before (John i. 
17) ; let us yield ourselves to the Living Christ to 
possess us and to rule us as the Living Truth, then 
will God's word be truth to us and in us. The 
Spirit of Christ is the Spirit of truth ; that actual 
heavenly reality of Divine life and love in Christ, 
the Truth, has a Spirit, who comes to communicate 
and impart it. Let us beware of trying to study or 
understand or take possession of God's word without 
that Spirit through whom the word was spoken of 
old; we shall find only the husk, the truth or 
thought and sentiment, very beautiful perhaps, but 
with no power to make us holy. We must have 
the Spirit of the truth within us. He will lead us 
into the truth ; when we are in the truth, God makes 
us holy in it and by it. The truth must be in us, 
and we in it. God desires truth in the inward 
parts : we must be of the people of whom Christ 
says, ' If ye were of the truth/ ' he that is of the 
truth knoweth me/ In the lower sphere of daily 
life and conduct of thought and action, there must 
be an intense love of truth, and a willingness to 



HOLINESS AND TRUTH. 147 

sacrifice everything for it ; in the spiritual life, a 
deep hungering to have all our religion every day, 
every moment, stand fully in the truth of God. 
It is to the simple, humble, childlike spirit that 
the truth of the word will be unsealed and revealed. 
In such the Spirit of truth comes to dwell. In 
such, as they daily wait before the Holy One in 
silence and emptiness, in reverence and holy fear, 
His Holy Spirit works and gives the truth within. 
In thus imparting Christ as revealed in the word, 
in His Divine life and love, as their own life, He 
makes them holy with the holiness of Christ. 

There is one lesson more. Listen to that prayer, 
the earthly echo of the prayer which He ever liveth 
to pray, ' Holy Father ! make them holy in the 
truth/ Would you be holy, child of God ? cast 
yourself into that mighty current of intercession 
ever flowing into, ever reaching, the Father's bosom. 
Let yourself be borne upon it until your whole soul 
cries, with the unutterable groanings, too deep and 
too intense for human speech, ' Holy Father ! make 
me holy in the truth/ As you trust in Christ as 
the truth, the reality of what you long for, and 
in His all-prevailing intercession, as you wait for 
the Spirit within as the Spirit of truth, look up 
to. the Father, and expect His own direct and 
almighty working to make you holy. The mystery 
of holiness is the mystery of the Triune One. The 
deeper entrance into the holy life rests in the fellow- 
ship of the Three in One. It is the Father who 
establishes us in Christ, who gives, in a daily fresh 



148 HOLY IN CHRIST. 

giving, the Holy Spirit ; it is to the Father, the 
Holy Father, the soul must look up continually in 
the prayer, ' Make me holy in the truth.' 

It has been well said that in the word Holy we 
have the central thought of the high-priestly prayer. 
As the Father's attribute (John xvii. 11), as the 
Son's work for Himself and us (ver. 19), as the direct 
work of the Father through the Spirit (vers. 17, 20). 
it is the revelation of the glory of God in Himself 
and in us. Let us enter into the Holiest of all, and 
as we bow with our Great High Priest, let the deep, 
unceasing cry go up for all the Church of God, 
' Holy Father ! make them holy in the truth : Thy 
word is truth/ The word in which God makes 
holy is summed up in this, Holy in Christ. May 
God make it truth in us ! 

Be ye holy, as I am holy. 



Blessed Father ! to Israel Thou didst say, I the 
Lord am holy and make holy. But it is only in 
Thy beloved Son that the full glory of Thy Holiness, 
as making us holy, has been revealed. Thou art our 
Holy Father, who makest us holy in Thy truth. 

We thank Thee that Thy Son hath given us the 
words Thou gavest Him, and that as He received 
them from Thee in life and power, we may receive 
them too. Father ! with our whole heart we do 
receive them ; let the Spirit make them truth and 
life within us. So shall we know Thee as the Hoty 
One, consuming the sin, renewing the sinner. 



HOLINESS AND TRUTH. 149 

We bless Thee most for Thy Blessed Son, the 
Holy One of God, the Living Word in whom the 
Truth dwelleth. We thank Thee that in His never- 
ceasing intercession, this cry ever reacheth Thee, 
' Father, sanctify them in Thy truth/ and that the 
answer is ever streaming forth from Thy glory. 
Holy Father! make us holy in Thy truth, in Thy 
wonderful revelation of Thyself in Him who is the 
truth. Let Thy Holy Spirit so have dominion in 
our hearts that Thy Holy Child Jesus, sanctifying 
Himself for us that we may be sanctified in the 
truth, may be to us the Way, the Truth, and the 
Life. May we know that we are in Him in Thy 
presence, and that Thy one word in answer to our 
prayer to make us holy is — Holy in Christ. Amen. 

1. God is the God of truth— not truth in speaking only, or truth of doctrine 
—but truth of existence, or life in its Diuine reality. And Christ is the truth ; 
the actual embodiment of this Diuine life. And there is a kingdom of truth, 
of Diuine Spiritual realities, of which Christ is King. And of all this truth 
of God in Christ, the uery essence is, the Spirit. He is the Spirit of truth : 
He leads us into it, so that we are of the truth and walk in it. Of the truth, 
the reality there is in God, Holiness, or the deepest root / the Spirit of truth 
is the Holy Spirit. 

2. It is the work of the Father to make us holy in the truth : let us bow 
very low in childlike trust as we breathe the prayer : ' Holy Father ! make us 
holy in the truth.' 

3. It is the intercession of the Son that asks and obtains this blessing : 
let us take our place in Him, and rejoice in the assurance of an answer. 

4. It is the Spirit of truth through whom the Father does this work, so 
that we dwell in the truth, and the truth in us. Let us yield uery freely and 
uery fully to the leading of the Spirit, in our intercourse with God's Word, that, 
as- the Son prays, the Father may make us holy in the truth. 

5. Let us, in the light of this work of the Three-Oae, never read the Word 
with this aim : to be made holy in the truth by God, 



150 HOLY IN CHRIST. 



Seventeenth Day. 
HOLY IN CHEIST. 

holiness anU Crucifixion* 

' For their sakes I sanctify myself, that they themselves also 
may be sanctified in truth.' — John xvii. 19. 

1 He said, Lo, I am come to do Thy will. In which will we 
have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus 
once for all. For by one offering He hath perfected for ever 
them that are sanctified.' — Heb. x. 9, 10, 14. 

IT was in His High-priestly prayer, on His way 
to Gethsemane and Calvary, that Jesus thus 
spake to the Father : ' I sanctify myself/ He had 
not long before spoken of Himself as 'the Son 
whom the Father hath sanctified and sent into the 
world/ From the language of Holy Scripture we 
are familiar with the thought that, what God has 
sanctified, man has to sanctify too. The work of 
the Father, in sanctifying the Son, is the basis and 
groundwork of the work of the Son in sanctifying 
Himself. If His Holiness as man was to be a free 
and personal possession, accepted and assimilated in 
voluntary and conscious self-determination, it was 
not enough that the Father sanctify Him : Hq 
must sanctify Himself too. 



HOLINESS AND CRUCIFIXION. 151 

This self -sanctifying of our Lord found place 
through His whole life, but culminates and comes 
out in special distinctness in His crucifixion. Wherein 
it consists is made clear by the words from the 
Epistle to the Hebrews. The Messiah spake : ' Lo, 
I come to do Thy will/ And then it is added, ' In 
the which will we have been sanctified through the 
offering of the body of Christ/ It was the offering 
of the body of Christ that was the will of God: in 
doing that will He sanctified us. It was of the 
doing that will in the offering His body that He 
spake, ' 1 sanctify myself, that they themselves 
also may be sanctified in truth/ The giving up of 
His will to God's will in the agony of Gethsemane, 
and then the doing of that will in the obedience 
unto death, this was Christ's sanctifying Himself 
and us too. Let us try and understand this. 

The Holiness of God is revealed in His will 
Holiness even in the Divine Being has no moral 
value except as it is freely willed. In speaking of 
the Trinity, theologians have pointed out how, as 
the Father represents the absolute necessity of 
Everlasting Goodness, the Son proves its liberty: 
within the Divine Being it is willed in love. And 
this was now the work of the Son on earth, amid the 
trials and temptations of a human life, to accept 
and hold fast at any sacrifice, with His whole heart 
to will, the will of the Father. ' Though He was a 
Son, yet He learned obedience in that He suffered.' 
In Gethsemane the conflict between the will of 
human nature and the Divine will reached its 



152 HOLY IN CHRIST. 

height : it manifests itself in language which almost 
makes us tremble for His sinlessness, as He speaks 
of His will in antithesis to God's will. But the 
struggle is a victory, because in presence of the 
clearest consciousness of what it means to have His 
own will, He gives it up, and says, ' Thy will be 
done.' To enter into the will of God He gives up 
His very life. In His crucifixion He reveals the 
law of sanctification. Holiness is the full entrance 
of our will into God's will. Or rather, Holiness is 
the entrance of God's will to be the death of our 
will. The only end of our will and deliverance 
from it, is death to it under the righteous judgment 
of God. It was in the surrender to the death of the 
cross that Christ sanctified Himself, and sanctified 
us, that we also might be sanctified in truth. 

And now, just as the Father sanctified Him, and 
He in virtue thereof appropriated it and sanctified 
Himself, so we, whom He has sanctified, have to 
appropriate it to ourselves. In no other way than 
crucifixion could Christ realize the sanctification He 
had from the Father. And in no other way can 
we realize the sanctification we have in Him. His 
own and our sanctification bears the common stamp 
of the cross. We have seen before that obedience 
is the path to holiness. In Christ we see that the 
path to perfect holiness is perfect obedience. And 
that is obedience unto death, even to the giving up 
of life, even the death of the cross. As the sanctifi- 
cation which Christ wrought out for us, even unto 
the offering of His body, bears the death mark, we 



HOLINESS AND CRUCIFIXION. 153 

c mnot partake of it, we cannot enter it, except as we 
die. Crucifixion is the path to sanctification. 

This lesson is in harmony with all we have seen. 
The first revelation of God's Holiness to Moses was 
accompanied with the command, Put off. God's 
praise, as Glorious in Holiness, Fearful in Praises, 
was sounded over the dead bodies of the Egyptians. 
When Moses on Sinai was commanded to sanctify 
the Mount, it was said, c If any touch it, man or 
beast, it shall not live/ The Holiness of God is 
death to all that is in contact with sin. Only 
through death, through blood-shedding, was there 
access to the Holiest of all. Christ chose death, 
even death as a curse, that He might sanctify Him- 
self for us, and open to us the path to Holiness, to 
the Holiest of all, to the Holy One. And so it is 
still. No man can see God and live. It is only in 
death, the death of self and of nature, that we can 
draw near and behold God. Christ led the way. 
No man can see God and live. ' Then let me die, 
Lord/ one has cried, 'but see Thee I must/ Yes, 
blessed be God, so real is our interest in Christ and 
our union to Him, that we may live in His death ; 
as day by day self is kept in the place of death, 
the life and the holiness of Christ can be ours. 1 

And where is the place of death ? And how can 
the crucifixion which leads to Holiness and to God 
be accomplished in us ? Thank God ! it is no work 
of our own, no weary process of self- crucifixion. 
The crucifixion that is to sanctify us is an accom* 
1 See Nete D. 



154 HOLY IN CHRIST. 

plished fact. The cross bears the banner, 'It is 
finished.' On it Christ sanctified Himself for us, 
that we might be sanctified in truth. Our cruci- 
fixion, as our sanctification, is something that in 
Christ has been completely and perfectly finished. 
' We have been sanctified through the offering of 
the body of Jesus Christ once for all/ ' By one 
offering He hath perfected for ever them that are 
sanctified.' In that fulness, which it is the Father's 
good pleasure should dwell in Christ, the crucifixion 
of our old man, of the flesh, of the world, of our- 
selves, is all a spiritual reality ; he that desires 
and knows and accepts Christ, fully receives all this 
in Him. And as the Christ, who had previously 
been known more in His pardoning, quickening, and 
saving grace, is again sought after as a real deliverer 
from the power of sin, as a sanctifier, He comes and 
takes up the soul into the fellowship of His suffer- 
ings and death. He reveals how it is a part of His 
salvation to make us partakers of a will that had 
given up itself to the will of God, a life that had 
yielded itself to the death, and had then been given 
back from the dead by the power of God, a life of 
which the crucifixion of self-will was the spirit and 
the power. He reveals this, and the soul that sees 
it, and consents to it, and yields its will and its life, 
and believes in Jesus as its death and its life, and 
in His crucifixion as its possession and its inherit- 
ance, enters into the enjoyment and experience of 
it. The language is now, 1 1 died that I might 
live : I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no 



HOLINESS AND CRUCIFIXION. 155 

longer I that live, but Christ that liveth in me. 1 
And the life it now lives is by the faith on the Son 
of God, the daily acceptance in faith of Him who 
lives within us in the power of a death that has 
been passed through and for ever finished. 

* 1 sanctify myself for them, that they themselves 
also may be sanctified in truth.' ' I come to do 
Thy will, God. In the which will/ the will of 
God accomplished by Christ, ' we have been sancti- 
fied through the one offering of the body of Christ/ 
Let us understand and hold it fast : Christ's giving 
up His will in Gethsemane and accepting God's will 
in dying ; Christ's doing that will in the obedience 
to the death of the cross, this is His sanctifying 
Himself, and this is our being sanctified in truth. 
( In the which will we have been sanctified. 5 The 
death to self, the utter and most absolute giving up 
of our own life, with its will and its power and its 
aims, to the cross, and into the crucifixion of Christ, 
the daily bearing the cross — not a cross on which 
we are yet to be crucified, but the cross of the 
crucified Christ in its power to kill and make dead 
= — this is the secret of the life of holiness — this is 
true sanctification. 

Believer ! is this the holiness which you are 
seeking? Have you seen and consented that God 
alone is holy, that self is all unholy, and that there 
is no way to be made holy but for the fire of the 
Divine Holiness to come in and be the death of self ? 
4 Always bearing about in the body the dying of 
Jesus, that the life also of Jesus may be manifested 



156 HOLY IN CHRIST. 

in our mortal body ' — is the pathway for each one 
who seeks to be sanctified in truth, even as He 
sanctified Himself ; sanctified just like Jesus. 

He sanctified Himself for us, that we ourselves 
also might be sanctified in truth. Yes, our sancti- 
fication rests and roots in His, in Himself. And we 
are in Him. The secret roots of our being are 
planted into Jesus : deeper down than we can see 
or feel, there is He our Vine, bearing and quickening 
us. Let us by faith understand that, in a manner 
and a measure which are far beyond our compre- 
hension, intensely Divine and real, we are in Him 
who sanctified Himself for us. Let us dwell there, 
where we have been placed of God. And let us 
bow our knees to the Father, that He would grant 
us to be mightily strengthened by His Spirit, that 
Christ as our Sanctification may dwell in our hearts, 
that the power of His death and His life may be 
revealed in us, and Gods will be done in us as 
it was in Him. 

Be holy, for I am holy. 



Holy Father ! I do bless Thee for this precious 
blessed word, for this precious blessed work of Thy 
beloved Son. In His intercession Thou ever hearest 
the wonderful prayer, ' I sanctify myself for them, 
that they themselves also may be sanctified in 
truth/ 

Blessed Father ! I beseech Thee to strengthen me 
mightily by Thy Spirit, that in living faith I may 



HOLINESS AND CRUCIFIXION. 157 

be abb to accept and live the holiness prepared for 
me in my Lord Jesus. Give me spiritual under- 
standing to know what it means that He sanctified 
Himself, that my sanctification is secured in His, 
that as by faith I abide in Him, its power will cover 
my whole life. Let His sanctification indeed be the 
law as it is the life of mine. Let His surrender to 
Thy fatherly will, His continual dependence and 
obedience, be its root and its strength. Let His 
death to the world and to sin be its daily rule. 
Above all, let Himself, my Father ! let Himself, 
as sanctified for me, the living Jesus, be my only 
trust and stay. He sanctified Himself for me, that 
I myself also may be sanctified in truth. 

Beloved Saviour ! how shall I rightly bless and 
love and glorify Thee for this w T ondrous grace ! 
Thou didst give Thyself, so that now I am holy in 
Thee. I give myself, that in Thee I myself may be 
made holy in truth. Amen. Lord Jesus ! Amen. 

7. '// any man would come after me, let him deny himself, and take up 
his cross, and follow me.' Jesus means that our life shall be the exact 
counterpart of His, including even the crucifixion. The beginning of such a 
life is the denial of self, to give Christ its place. The dews would not deny 
self, but 'denied the Holy One, and killed the Prince of Life.' The choice 
is still between Christ and self. Let us deny the unholy one, and give him 
to the death. 

2. The steps in this path are these : First, the deliberate decision that self 
8 hall be given up to the death ; then, the surrender to Christ crucified to make 
us partakers of His crucifixion ; then, 'knowing that our old man is cruci- 
fied,' the faith that says, '/ am crucified with Christ;' and then, the power 
to iive as a crucified one, to glory in the cross of Christ. 

3. This is God's way of holiness, a Divine mystery, which the Holy Spirit 
alone can daily maintain in us. Blessed be God, it is the life which a Christian 
can live, because Christ lives in us. 

4. The central thought is ; We are in Christ, who gave up His will and did 
the will of God. By the Holy Spirit the mind that was in Him is in us, th6 
will of self is crucified, and we live in the will of God. 



158 HOLY IN CHRIST. 



Eighteenth Day. 



HOLY IN CHBIST. 

holiness anU Jattlj, 

* That they may receive remission of sins, and an inheritance 
among them that are sanctified by faith in me? — Acts 
xxvi. 18* 

THE more we study Scripture in the light of the 
Holy Spirit, or practise the Christian life in 
His power, the deeper becomes our conviction of the 
unique and central place faith has in God's plan of 
salvation. And we learn, too, to see that it is meet 
and right that it should be so : the very nature of 
things demands it. Because God is a Spiritual and 
Invisible Being, every revelation of Himself, whether 
in His works, His word, or His Son, calls for faith, 
Faith is the spiritual sense of the soul, being to it 
what the senses are to the body; by it alone we 
enter into communication and contact with God. 

Faith is that meekness of soul which waits in 
stillness to hear, to understand, to accept what God 
says ; to receive, to retain, to possess what God gives 
or works. By faith we allow, we welcome God 
Himself, the Living P^on* to entqr in to mak^ 



HOLINESS AND FAITH. 159 

His abode with us, to become our very life. How- 
ever well we think we know it, we always have to 
learn the truth afresh, for a deeper and fuller 
application of it, that in the Christian life faith is 
the first thing, the one thing that pleases God, and 
brings blessing to us. And because Holiness is 
God's highest glory, and the highest blessing He has 
for us, it is especially in the life of holiness that we 
need to live by faith alone. 

Our Lord speaks here of ' them that are sancti- 
fied by faith in me.' 1 He Himself is our Sanctifi- 
cation as He is our Justification : for the one as for 
the other it is faith that God asks, and both are 
equally given at once. The participle used here is not 
the present, denoting a process or work that is being 
carried on, but the aorist, indicating an act done 
once for all. "When we believe in Christ, we receive 
the whole Christ, our justification and our sanctifi- 
cation : we are at once accepted by God as righteous 
in Him, and as holy in Him. God counts and calls 
us, what we really are, sanctified ones in Christ. 
It is as we are led to see what God sees, as our 
faith grasps that the holy life of Christ is ours in 
actual possession, to be accepted and appropriated for 
daily use, that we shall really be able to live the 

1 The best commentators connect the expression, ' by faith in 
me,' not with the word * sanctified,' but with the whole clause, 
'that by faith in me they may receive.' This will, however, in no 
way affect the application to the word sanctified. Thus read, the 
text tells us that the remission of sin, and the inheritance, and 
the sanctification which qualifies for the inheritance, are all received 
by faith. 



160 HOLY IN CHRIST. 

life God calls us to, the life of holy ones in Christ 
Jesus. We shall then be in the right position in 
which what is called our progressive sanctification 
can be worked out. It will be, the acceptance and 
application in daily life of the power of a holy life 
which has been prepared in Jesus, which has in the 
union with Him become our present and permanent 
possession, and which works in us according to the 
measure of our faith. 1 

From this point of view it is evident that faith 
has a twofold operation. Faith is the evidence of 
things not seen, though now actually existing, the 
substance of things hoped for, but not yet present. 
As the evidence of things not seen, it rejoices in 
Christ our complete sanctification, as a present 
possession. Through faith I simply look to what 
Christ is, as revealed in the Word by the Holy 
Spirit. Claiming all He is as my own, I know 
that His Holiness, His holy nature and life, are 
mine ; I am a holy one : by faith in Him I have 
been sanctified. This is the first aspect of sanctifi- 
cation : it looks to what is a complete and finished 
thing, an absolute reality. As the substance of 
things hoped for, this faith reaches out in the assur- 
ance of hope to the future, to things I do not yet 
see or experience, and day by day claim, out of 
Christ our sanctification, what it needs for practical 
holiness, ' to be holy in all manner of living.' This 
is the second aspect of sanctification : appropriating 
in personal experience, gradually and unceasingly, 
1 See Note E. 



HOLINESS AND FAITH. 161 

for the need of each moment, what has been 
treasured up in the fulness of Jesus. c Of God are 
ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us 
sanctification.' Under its first aspect faith says, I 
know I am in Him, and all His Holiness is mine ; 
in its second aspect it speaks, I trust in Him for 
the grace and the strength I need each moment to 
live a holy life. 

And yet, it need hardly be said, these two are 
one. It is one Jesus who is our sanctification, 
whether we look at it in the light of what He is 
made for us once for all, or what, as the fruit of 
that, He becomes to our experience day by day. 
And so it is one faith which, the more it studies 
and adores and rejoices in Jesus as made of God 
unto us sanctification, as Him in whom we have 
been sanctified, the bolder it becomes to expect the 
fulfilment of every promise for daily life, and the 
stronger to claim the victory over every sin. Faith 
in Jesus is the secret of a holy life : all holy 
conduct, all really holy deeds, are the fruit of faith 
in Jesus as our holiness. 

"We know how faith acts, and what its great 
hindrances are, in the matter of justification. It 
is well that we remind ourselves that there are the 
same dangers in the exercise of sanctifying as of 
justifying faith. Faith in God stands opposed to 
trust in self : specially to its willing and working. 
Fai;h is hindered by every effort to do something 
ourselves. Faith looks to God working, and yields 
itself to His strength, as revealed in Christ through 

L 



162 HOLY IN CHRIST. 

the Spirit ; it allows God to work both to will and 
to do. Faith must work ; without works it is 
dead, by works alone can it be perfected ; in Jesus 
Christ, as Paul says, nothing avails but ' faith 
working by love/ But these works, which faith 
in God's working inspires and performs, are very 
different from the works in which a believer often 
puts forth his best efforts, only to find that he fails. 
The true life of holiness, the life of them who are 
sanctified in Christ, has its root and its strength in 
an abiding sense of utter impotence, in the deep 
restfulness which trusts to the working of a Divine 
power and life, in the entire personal surrender to 
the loving Saviour, in that faith which consents to 
be nothing, that He may be all. It may appear 
impossible to discern or describe the difference 
between the working that is of self and the work- 
ing that is of Christ through faith : if we but know 
that there is such a difference, if we learn to 
distrust ourselves, and to count on Christ working, 
the Holy Spirit will lead us into this secret of the 
Lord too. Faith's works are Christ's works. 

And as by effort, so faith is also hindered by 
the desire to see and feel. ' If thou believest, thou 
shalt see ; ' the Holy Spirit will s£al our faith with 
a Divine experience ; we shall see the glory of God. 
But this is His work : ours is, when all appears 
dark and cold, in the face of all that nature or 
experience testifies, still each moment to believe 
in Jesus as our all-sufficient sanctification, in whom 
we are perfected before God. Complaints as to 



HOLINESS AND FAITH. 163 

want of feeling, as to weakness or deadness, seldom 
profit: it is the soul that refuses to occupy itself 
with itself, either with its own weakness or the 
strength of the enemy, but only looks to what 
Jesus is, and has promised to do, to whom progress 
in holiness will be a joyful march from victory to 
victory. ' The Lord Himself doth fight for you ; ' 
this thought, so often repeated in connection with 
Israel's possession of the promised land, is the food 
of faith : in conscious weakness, in presence of 
mighty enemies, it sings the conqueror's song. 

There is perhaps nothing that more reveals the 
true character of faith than joy and praise. You 
give a child the promise of a present to-morrow : 
at once it says, Thank you, and is glad. The 
joyful thanks are the proof of how really your 
promise has entered the heart. You are told by a 
friend of a rich legacy he has left you in his will : 
it may not come true for years, but even now it 
makes you glad. We have already seen what an 
element of holiness joy is : it is especially an 
element of holiness by faith. Each time I really 
see how beautiful and how perfect God's provision 
is by which my holiness is in Jesus, and by which 
I am to allow Him to work in me, my heart ought 
to rise up in praise and thanks. Instead of allow- 
ing the thought that it is after all a life of such 
difficult attainment and such continual self-denial, 
this life of holiness through faith, we ought to 
praise Him exceedingly that He has made it 
possible and sure for us : we can be holy, because 



164 HOLY IN CHRIST. 

Jesus the Mighty and the Loving One is out 
holiness. Praise will express our faith ; praise 
will prove it; praise will strengthen it. 'Then 
believed they His words ; they sang His praise/ 
Praise will commit us to faith : we shall see that 
we have but one thing to do, to go on in a faith 
that ever trusts and ever praises. It is in a living, 
loving attachment to Jesus, that rejoices in Him, 
and praises Him continually for what He is to us, 
that faith proves itself, and receives the power of 
holiness. 

' Sanctified by faith in me/ Yes, € by faith in 
Me: 9 it is the personal living Jesus who offers 
Himself, Himself in all the riches of His Power 
and Love, as the object, the strength, the life of 
our faith. He tells us that if we would be holy, 
always and in everything holy, we must just see to 
one thing : to be always and altogether full of 
faith in Him. Faith is the eye of the soul: the 
power by which we discern the presence of the 
Unseen One, as He comes to give Himself to us. 
Faith not only sees, but appropriates and assimilates : 
let us set our souls very still for the Holy Spirit 
who dwells in us, to quicken and strengthen that 
faith, for which He has been given us. Faith is 
surrender : yielding ourselves to Jesus to allow Him 
to do His work in us, giving up ourselves to Him 
to live out His life and work out His will in us, 
we shall find Him giving Himself entirely to us, 
and taking complete possession. So faith will be 
power : the power of obedience to do God's will : 



HOLINESS AND FAITH. 165 

1 our most holy faith/ ' the faith delivered to the holy 
ones.' And we shall understand how simple, to the 
single-hearted, is the secret of holiness : just Jesus. 
We are in Him, our Sanctification : He personally 
is our Holiness; and the life of faith in Him, that 
receives and possesses Him, must necessarily be a 
life of holiness. Jesus says, 'Sanctified by faith 
in me/ 

Be ye holy, as I am holy. 



Beloved Lord ! again have I seen, with adoring 
wonder, what Thou art willing to be to me. It is in 
Thyself, and a life of living fellowship with Thyself, 
that I am to become holy. It is in the simple life 
of personal attachment, of trust and love, of surrender 
and consecration, that Thou dost become my all, 
and make me partaker of Thyself and Thy Holiness. 

Blessed Lord Jesus ! I do believe in Thee, help 
Thou mine unbelief. I confess what still remains 
of unbelief, and count on Thy presence to conquer 
and cast it out. My soul is opening up continually 
to see more of how Thou Thyself art my Life and 
my Holiness. Thou art enlarging my heart to 
rejoice in Thyself as my all, and to be assured that 
Thou dost Thyself take possession and fill the 
temple of my being with Thy glory. Thou art 
teaching me to understand that, however feeble and 
human and disappointing experiences may be, Thy 
Holy Spirit is the strength of my faith, leading 
me on to grow up into a stronger and a larger 



166 HOLY IN CHRIST, 

confidence in Thee in whom I am holy. my 
Saviour ! I take Thy word this day, c Sanctified by 
faith in me/ as a new revelation of Thy love and 
its purpose with me. In Thee Thyself is the 
Power of my holiness ; in Thee is the Power of my 
faith. Blessed be Thy name that Thou hast given 
me too a place among them of whom Thou speakest : 
' Sanctified by faith in me/ Amen. 

7. Let us remember that it is not only the faith that is dealing specially 
with Christ for sanctifi cation, but all living faith, that has the power to sanctify. 
Anything that casts the soul wholly on Jesus, that calls forth intense and 
simple trust, be it the trial of faith, or the prayer of faith, or the work oj 
faith, helps to make us holy, because it brings us into living contact with 
Jesus. 

2. It is only through the Holy Spirit that Christ and His Holiness are day by 
day revealed and made ours in actual possession. And so the faith which 
receives Him is of the Spirit too. Yield yourself In simplicity and trust to His 
working. Do not be afraid, as if you cannot believe: you have 'the Spirit of 
faith ' within you : you have the power to believe. And you may ask God to 
strengthen you mightily by His Spirit in the inner man, for the faith that 
receives Christ in the indwelling that knows no break. 

3. I have only so much of faith as I have of the Spirit. Is not this then 
what I most need— to live entirely under the influence of the Spirit ? 

4. Just as the eye in seeing is receptive, and yields to let the object placed 
before it make its impression, so faith is the impression God makes on the 
soul when He draws nigh. Was not the faith of Abraham the fruit of God's 
drawing near and speaking to him, the impression God made on him ? Let 
us be still to gaze on the Divine mystery of Christ our holiness : His Presence, 
waited for and worshipped, wilt work the faith. That is, the Spirit that 
proceeds from Him into those who cling to Him, will be faith. 



HOLINESS AND RESURRECTION. 167 



Nineteenth Day. 



HOLY IN CHEIST. 

Holiness anU insurrection* 

• The Son of God, who was born of the seed of David according 
to the flesh, who was declared to be the Son of God with power, 
according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection of the 
dead/ — Rom. i. 4. 

fTlHESE words speak of a twofold birth of Christ. 
-*• According to the flesh, He was born of the 
seed of David. According to the Spirit, He was 
the first begotten from the dead. As He was a Son 
of David in virtue of His birth through the flesh, 
so He was declared to be the Son of God with 
power, in virtue of His resurrection-birth through 
the Spirit of holiness. As the life He received 
through His first birth was a life in and after the 
flesh with its weakness, so the new life He received 
in the resurrection was a life in the power of the 
Spirit of holiness. 

The expression, the Spirit of holiness, is a peculiar 
one. It is not the ordinary word for God's Holiness 
that is here used as in Heb. xii. 10, describing holi- 
ness in the abstract as the attribute of an object, 



168 HOLY IN CHRIST. 

but another word (also used in 2 Cor. vii. 1 and 
1 Thess. iii. 13) expressing the habit of holiness in 
its action — practical holiness or sanctity. 1 Paul 
used this word, because He wished to emphasize the 
thought, that Christ's resurrection was distinctly the 
result of that life and holiness and self-sanctifying 
which had culminated in His death. It was the 
spirit of the life of holiness which he had lived, in 
the power of which He was raised again. He 
teaches us that that life and death of self-sanctifi- 
cation, in which alone our sanctification stands, 
was the root and ground of His resurrection, and of 
its declaration that He was the Son of God with 
power, the first begotten from the dead. The resur- 
rection was the fruit which that Life of Holiness 
bore, and so the Life of Holiness becomes the 
property of all who are partakers of the resurrec- 
tion. The Eesurrection Life and the Spirit of 
Holiness are inseparable. Christ sanctified Him- 
self in death, that we ourselves might be sanctified 
in truth : when in virtue of the Spirit of sanctity 
He was raised from the dead, that Spirit of holiness 
was proved to be the power of Eesurrection Life, 
and the Eesurrection Life to be a Life of Holiness. 

As a believer you have part in this Eesurrec- 
tion Life. You have been ' begotten again by the 
resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.' You 
are ' risen with Christ.' You are commanded ' te 
reckon yourself to be alive unto God in Christ Jesus.' 
But the life can work in power only as you seek to 

* See Note F. 



HOLINESS AND RESURRECTION. 169 

know it, to yield to it, to let it have full possession 
and mastery. And if it is to do this, one of the 
most important things for you to realize is, that as 
it was in virtue of the Spirit of holiness that Christ 
was raised, so the Spirit of that same holiness must 
be in you the mark and the power of your life. 
Study to know and possess the Spirit of holiness as 
it was seen in the life of your Lord. 

And wherein did it consist ? Its secret was, we 
are told : ' Lo, I am come to do Thy will, God 
' In the which will/ as done by Christ, ' we have 
been sanctified by the one offering of the body of 
Jesus Christ.' This was Christ's sanctifying Him- 
self, in life and in death ; this was what the Spirit 
of holiness wrought in Him ; this is what the same 
Spirit, the Spirit of the life in Christ Jesus, will 
work in us : a life in the will of God is a life of 
holiness. Seek earnestly to grasp this clearly. Christ 
came to reveal what true holiness would be in the 
conditions of human life and weakness. He came 
to work it out for you, that He might communicate 
it to you by His Spirit. Except you intelligently 
apprehend and heartily accept it, the Spirit cannot 
work it in you. Do seek with your whole heart to 
take hold of it : the will of God unhesitatingly 
accepted, is the power of holiness. 

It is in this that any attempt to be holy as 
Christ is holy, w T ith and in His Holiness, must 
have its starting-point. Many seek to take single 
portions of the life or image of Christ for imitation, 
and yet fail greatly in others. They have not seeri 



170 HOLY IN CHEIST. 

that the self-denial Jesus calls to really means the 
denial of self, in the full meaning of that word. In 
not one single thing is the will of self to be done : 
Jesus, as He did the will of the Father only, must 
rule, and not self. To ' stand perfect and complete in 
all the will of God ' must be the purpose, the prayer, 
the expectation of the disciple. There need be no 
fear that it is not possible to know the will of the 
Father in everything. ' If any man will do, he 
shall know.' The Father will not keep the willing 
child in ignorance of His will. As the surrender to 
the Spirit of holiness, to Jesus and the dominion of 
His holy life, becomes more simple, sin and self-will 
will be discovered, the spiritual understanding will be 
opened up, and the law written in the inward parts 
become legible and intelligible. There need be no 
fear that it is not possible to do the will of the 
Father when it is known. When once the grief of 
failure and sin has driven the believer into the 
experience of Eom. vii, and the ' delight in the law 
of God after the inward man' has proved its 
earnestness in the cry, ' wretched man that I 
am/ deliverance will come through Jesus Christ. 
The Spirit works not only to will but to do ; where 
the believer could only complain, ' To perform that 
which is good, I find not/ He gives the strength 
and song, ' The law of the Spirit of life in Christ 
Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and 
death/ 

In this faith, that it is possible to know and do 
the will of God in all things, take ever from Him, 



HOLINESS AND RESURRECTION. 171 

in whom alone you are holy, as your life-principle ; 
1 1 come to do Thy will, God.' It is the principle 
of the resurrection life : without it Jesus had never 
been raised again. It is the principle of the new life 
in you. Accept it ; study it ; realize it ; act it out. 
Many a believer has found that some simple words 
of dedication, expressive of the purpose in every- 
thing to do God's will, have been an entrance into 
the joy and power of the resurrection life previously 
unknown. The will of God is the complete ex- 
pression of His moral perfection, His Divine Holi- 
ness. To take one's place in the centre of that will, 
to live it out, to be borne and sustained by it, 
was the power of that life of Jesus that could 
not be held of death, that could not but burst out 
in resurrection glory. What it was to Jesus it will 
be to us. 

Holiness is Life : this is the simplest expression 
of the truth our text teaches. There can be no 
holiness until there be a new life implanted. The 
new life cannot grow and break forth in resurrec- 
tion power, cannot bring forth fruit, but as it grows 
in holiness. As long as the believer is living the 
mixed life, part in the flesh and part in the spirit, 
with some of self and some of Christ, he seeks in 
vain for holiness. It is the New Life that is the 
holy life : the full apprehension of it in faith, the 
full surrender to it in conduct, will be the highway 
of holiness. Jesus lived and died and rose again to 
prepare for us a new nature, to be received day by 
day in the obedience of faith : we 'have put on the 



172 HOLY IN CHEIST. 

new man, which after God is created in righteous* 
ness and true holiness.' Let the inner life, hid 
with Christ in God, hid also deep in the recesses of 
our inmost being, be acknowledged, be waited on, 
be yielded to, it will work itself out in all the 
beauties of holiness. 

There is more. This life is not like the life of 
nature, a blind, non-conscious principle, involuntarily 
working out its ideal in blind unresisting obedience to 
the law of its being. There is the Spirit of the life 
in Christ Jesus — the Spirit of holiness — the Holy 
Spirit dwelling in us as a Divine Person, entering 
into fellowship with us, and leading us into the 
fellowship of the Living Christ. It is this fills our 
life with hope and joy. The Eisen Saviour breathed 
the Holy Spirit on His disciples : the Spirit brings 
the Eisen One into the field, into our hearts, as a 
personal friend, as a Living Guide and Strengthener. 
The Spirit of holiness is the Spirit, the Presence, 
and the Power of the Living Christ. Jesus said 
of the Spirit, ' Ye know Him.' Is not our great 
need to know this Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Christ, 
of His Holiness and of ours ? How can we ' walk 
after the Spirit ' and follow His leading, if we know 
not Him and His voice and His way ? 

Let us learn one more lesson from our text. It 
is oat of the grave of the flesh and the will of 
elf that the Spirit of holiness breaks out in resur- 
rection power. We must accept death to the flesh, 
death to self with its willing and working as the 
birthplace of our experience of the power of the 



HOLINESS AND RESURRECTION. 173 

Spirit of holiness. In view of each struggle with 
sin, in each exercise of faith or prayer, we must 
enter into the death of Jesus, the death to self, and 
as those who say, ' we are not sufficient to think 
anything as of ourselves/ in quiet faith expect the 
Spirit of Christ to do His work. The Spirit will 
work, strengthening you mightily in the inner man, 
and building up within you an holy temple for 
the Lord. And the time will come, if it has not 
come to you yet, and it may be nearer than you 
dare hope, when the conscious indwelling of Christ 
in your heart by faith, the full revelation and 
enthronement of Him as ruler and keeper of heart 
and life, shall have become a personal experience. 
According to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrec- 
tion from the dead, will the Son of God be declared 
with power in the kingdom that is within you. 

Be ye holy, for I am holy. 



Most Holy Lord God ! we do bless Thee that 
Thou didst raise Thy Son from the dead and give 
Hirn glory, that our faith and hope might be in 
Thee. Thou didst make His resurrection the power 
of eternal life in us, and now, even as He was raised, 
so we may walk in newness of life. As the Spirit 
of holiness dwelt and wrought in Him, it dwells and 
works in us, and becomes in us the Spirit of life. 

God ! we beseech Thee to perfect Thy work in 
Thy saints. Give them a deeper sense of the holy 
calling with which Thou hast called them in Christ; 



174 HOLY IN CHRIST. 

the Eisen One. Give all to accept the Spirit oi 
His life on earth, delight in the will of God, as the 
spirit of their life. May those who have never yet 
fully accepted this be brought to do it, and in faith 
of the power of the new life to say, I accept the 
will of God as my only law. May the Spirit of 
holiness be the spirit of their lives ! 

Father ! we beseech Thee, let Christ thus in ever 
increasing experience of His resurrection power be 
revealed in our hearts as the Son of God, Lord and 
Euler within us. Let His life within inspire all 
the outer life, so that in the home and society, in 
thought and speech and action, in religion and in 
business, His life may shine out from us in the 
beauty of holiness. Amen. 

1. Scripture regards the resurrection in two different aspects. In one view, 
it is the title to the new life, the source of our justification. {Rom. iv. 25 ; 
1 Cor. xv. 17.) In another it is our regeneration, tke power of the new life 
working in us, the source of our sanctifi cation. (Rom. ui. 4; 1 Pet. i. 3.) 
Pardon and holiness are inseparable ; they have the same source, union with 
the Risen Living Christ. 

2. The blessedness to the disciples of having a Risen Christ was this : He, 
whom they thought dead, came and revealed Himself to them. Christ lives to 
reveal Himself to thee and to me ; wait on Him, trust Him for this. He will 
reveal Himself to thee as thy sanctifi cation. See to it that thou hast Him in 
living possession, and thou hast His Holiness. 

3. The life of Christ is the holiness of Christ. The reason we so often fail in 
the pursuit of holiness is that the old life, the flesh, in its own strength seeks 
for holiness as a beautiful garment to wear and enter heaven with, ft is the 
daily death to self out of which the life of Christ rises up. 

4. To die thus, to live thus in Christ, to be holy— how can we attain it ? It 
all comes 'according to the Spirit of holiness.' Have the Holy Spirit within 
thee. Say daily, '/ believe in the Holy Ghost.' 

5. Holy in Christ. When Christ lives in us, and His mind, as it found 
expression in His words and work on earth, enters and fills our will and per- 
sonal consciousness, then our union with Him becomes what He meant it to be. 
It is the Spirit of His holy conduct, the Spirit of His sanctity, must be in us. 



HOLINESS AND LIBEBTY. 175 



Twentieth Day. 



HOLY IN CHEIST. 

holiness anli Hiftertg* 

* Being made free from sin, ye became servants of righteous- 
ness: now present your members as servants of righteousness 
unto sanctification. Now being made free from sin, and become 
servants unto God, ye have your fruit unto sanctification, and 
the end eternal life.' — Rom. vi. 18, 19, 22. 

'Our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus.' — Gal. ii. 4. 

' With freedom did Christ set us free : stand fast therefore, and 
be not entangled again in a yoke of bondage.' — Gal. v. 1. 

THEEE is no possession more precious or priceless 
than liberty. There is nothing more inspiring 
and elevating ; nothing, on the other hand, more 
depressing and degrading than slavery. It robs a 
man of what constitutes his manhood, the power of 
self-decision, self-action, of being and doing what he 
would. 

Sin is slavery ; the bondage to a foreign power 
that has obtained the mastery over us, and compels 
often a most reluctant service. The redemption of 
Christ restores our liberty and sets us free from the 
power of sin. If we are truly to live as redeemed ones. 
we need not only to look at the work Christ did to 



176 HOLY m CHRIST. 

accomplish our redemption, but to accept and realize 
fully how complete, how sure, how absolute the 
liberty is wherewith He hath made us free. It is 
only as we 'stand fast in our liberty in Christ 
Jesus/ that we can have our fruit unto sancti- 
fication. 

It is remarkable how seldom the word holy occurs 
in the great argument of the Epistle to the Eomans, 
and how, where twice used in chap. vi. in the ex- 
pression 'unto sanctification/ it is distinctly set 
forth as the aim and fruit to be reached through a 
life of righteousness. The twice repeated 'unto 
sanctification,' pointing to a result to be obtained, 
is preceded by a twice repeated 'being made free 
from sin and become servants of righteousness.' It 
teaches us how the liberty from the power of sin 
and the surrender to the service of righteousness are 
not yet of themselves holiness, but the sure and only 
path by which it can be reached. A true insight and 
a full entering into our freedom from sin in Christ 
are indispensable to a life of holiness. It was when 
Israel was freed from Pharaoh that God began to 
reveal Himself as the Holy One : it is as we know 
ourselves ' freed from sin,' delivered from the hand 
of all our enemies, that we shall serve God in 
righteousness and holiness all the days of our life. 

' Being made free from sin : ' to understand this 
word aright, we must beware of a twofold error. 
We must neither narrow it down to less, nor import 
into it more, than the Holy Spirit means by it here. 
Paul is speaking neither of an imputation nor an 



HOLINESS AND LIBERTY. 177 

experience. We must not limit it to being made 
free from the curse or punishment of sin. The 
context shows that he is speaking, not of our 
judicial standing, but of a spiritual reality, our being 
in living union with Christ in His death and resur- 
rection, and so being entirely taken out from under 
the dominion or power of sin. < Sin shall not have 
dominion over you.' Nor is he as yet speaking of 
an experience, that we feel that we are free from 
all sin. He speaks of the great objective fact, 
Christ's having finally delivered us from the power 
which sin had to compel us to do its will and its 
works, and urges us, in the faith of this glorious fact, 
boldly to refuse to listen to the bidding or tempta- 
tion of sin. To know our liberty which we have in 
Christ, our freedom from sin's mastery and power, 
is the way to realize it as an experience. 

In olden times, when Turks or Moors often made 
slaves of Christians, large sums were frequently 
paid for the ransom of those who were in bondage. 
But it happened more than once, away in the 
interior of the slave country, that the ransomed ones 
never got the tidings ; the masters were only too 
glad to keep it from them. Others, again, got the 
tidings, but had grown too accustomed to their 
bondage to rouse themselves for the effort of reach- 
ing the coast. Slothfulness or hoplessness kept 
them in slavery ; they could not believe that they 
would be able ever in safety to reach the land of 
liberty. The ransom had been paid ; in truth they 
were free; and yet in their experience, by reason of 

M 



178 HOLY IN CHRIST. 

ignorance or want of courage, they were still in 
bondage. Christ's redemption has so completely 
made an end of sin and the legal power it had over 
us, — for ' the strength of sin is the law/ — that in 
very deed, in the deepest reality, sin has no power 
to compel our obedience. It is only as we allow it 
again to reign, as we yield ourselves again as its 
servants, that it can exercise the mastery. Satan 
does his utmost to keep believers in ignorance of the 
completeness of this their freedom from his slavery. 
And because believers are so content with their own 
thoughts of what redemption means, and so little 
long and plead to see it and possess it in its fulness 
of deliverance and blessing, the experience of the 
extent to which the freedom from sin can be realized 
is so feeble. ' Where the Spirit of the Lord is, 
there is liberty.' It is by the Holy Spirit, His light 
and leading within, humbly watched for and yielded 
to, that this liberty becomes our possession. 

In the sixth chapter Paul speaks of freedom from 
sin, in chap. vii. (vers. 3, 4, 6) of freedom from the 
law, as both being ours in Christ and union with 
Him. In chap. viii. (ver. 2) he speaks of this free- 
dom as become ours in experience. He says, l The 
law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made 
me free from the law of sin and death.' The free- 
dom which is ours in Christ, must become ours in 
personal appropriation and enjoyment through the 
Holy Spirit. The latter depends on the former: 
the fuller the faith, the clearer the insight, the 
more triumphant the glorying in Christ Jesus and 



HOLINESS AND LIBERTY. 179 

the liberty with which He has made us free, the 
speedier and the fuller the entrance into the glorious 
liberty of the children of God. As the liberty is in 
Christ alone, so it is the Spirit of Christ alone that 
makes it ours in practical possession, and keeps us 
dwelling in it : ' the spirit of the life in Christ Jesus 
hath made me free from the law of sin and death.' 
'Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.' 
As the Spirit reveals Jesus to us as Lord and Master, 
the new Master, who alone has ought to say over 
us, and leads us to yield ourselves, to present our 
members, to surrender our whole life to the service 
of God in Christ, our faith in the freedom from sin 
becomes a consciousness and a realization. Believing 
in the completeness of the redemption, the captive 
goes forth as l the Lord's freedman.' He knows 
now that sin has no longer power for one moment 
to command obedience. It may seek to assert its 
old right ; it may speak in the tone of autho- 
rity ; it may frighten us into fear and submission, 
but power it has none over us, except as we, forget- 
ting our freedom, yield to its temptation, and our- 
selves give it power. 

We are the Lord's freedmen. ' We have our 
liberty in Christ Jesus.' In Eom. vii. Paul describes 
the terrible struggles of the soul who still seeks to 
fulfil the law, but finds itself utterly helpless ; sold 
under sin, a captive and a slave, without the liberty 
to do what the whole heart desires. But when the 
Spirit takes the place of the law, the complaint, 
* wretched man that I am/ is changed for the 



180 HOLY IN CHEIST. 

song of victory : ' I thank God, through Jesus 
Christ, the law of the Spirit of life hath made me 
free.' 

What numberless complaints of insufficient 
strength to do God's will, of unsuccessful effort and 
disappointed hopes, of continual failure, re-echo in a 
thousand different forms the complaint of the cap- 
tive, ' wretched man that I am I ' Thank God ! 
there is deliverance. - With freedom did Christ set 
us free ! Stand fast therefore, and be not entangled 
again in a yoke of bondage/ Satan is ever seeking 
to lay on us again the yoke either of sin or the law, 
to beget again the spirit of bondage, as if sin or the 
law with their demands somehow had power over 
us. It is not so : be not entangled ; stand fast in 
the liberty with which Christ has made you free. 
Let us listen to the message : ' Being made free from 
sin, ye became servants unto righteousness ; now 
yield your members servants to righteousness unto 
sanctification.' ' Having been made free from sin, 
and having been enslaved unto God, ye have your 
fruit unto sanctification' To be holy, you must be 
free, perfectly free ; free for Jesus to rule you, to 
lead you; free for the Holy Spirit to dispose of you, 
to breathe in you, to work His secret, gentle, but 
mighty work, so that you may grow up unto all the 
liberty Jesus has won for you. The temple could 
not be sanctified by the indwelling of God, except 
as it was free from every other master and every 
other use, to be for Him and His service alone. 
The inner temple of our heart cannot be truly and 



HOLINESS AND LIBERTY. 181 

fully sanctified, except as we are free from every 
other master and power, from every yoke of bond- 
age, or fear, or doubt, to let His Spirit lead us 
into the perfect liberty which has its fruit in true 
holiness. 

Being made free from sin, having become servants 
unto righteousness, ye have your fruit unto holiness, 
and the end life everlasting. Freedom, Eighteousness, 
Holiness — these are the steps on the way to the 
coming glory. The more deeply we enter by faith 
into our liberty, which we have in Christ, the more 
joyfully and confidently we present our members to 
God as instruments of righteousness. The God is 
the Father whose will we delight to do, whose ser- 
vice is perfect liberty. The Eedeemer is the Master, 
to whom love binds us in willing obedience. The 
liberty is not lawlessness : - we are delivered from our 
enemies, that we may serve Him in righteousness 
and holiness all the days of our life.' 1 

The liberty is the condition of the righteousness ; 
and this again of the holiness. The doing of God's 
will leads up into that fellowship, that heart sym- 
pathy with God Himself, out of which comes that 
reflection of the Divine Presence, which is Holiness. 
Being made free from sin, being made the slaves of 
righteousness and of God, we have our fruit unto 
holiness, and the end — the fruit of holiness becomes, 
when ripe, the seed of — -everlasting life. 

Be ye holy, as I am holy. 

1 See Note G. 



182 HOLY IN CHRIST. 

Most glorious God ! I pray Thee to open my 
eyes to this wonderful liberty with which Christ 
has made me free. May I enter fully into Thy 
word that sin shall have no dominion over me 
because I am not under the law but under grace. 
May I know my liberty which I have in Christ 
Jesus, and stand fast in it. 

Father ! Thy service is perfect liberty : reveal 
this too to me. Thou art the infinitely Free, and 
Thy will knows no limits but what its own perfection 
has placed. And Thou invitest us into Thy will, 
that we may be free as Thou art. my God ! 
show me the beauty of Thy will, as it frees me from 
self and from sin, and let it be my only blessedness. 
Let the service of righteousness so be a joy and a 
strength to me, having its fruit unto sanctification, 
leading me into Thy Holiness, 

Blessed Lord Jesus! my Deliverer and my Liberty, 
I belong to Thee. I give myself to Thy will, to 
know no will but Thine. Master ! Thee and Thee 
alone would I serve. I have my liberty in Thee ! 
be Thou my Keeper. I cannot stand for one 
moment out of Thee. In Thee I can stand fast : 
in Thee I put my trust. 

Most Holy God ! as Thy free, obedient, loving 
child, Thou wilt make me holy. Amen. 



7. Liberty is the power to carry out unhindered the imputse of our nature. 
In Christ the child of God is free from euery power that could hinder his 
acting out the law of his new nature. 

2. This liberty is of faith (Gal. v. 5, 6). By faith in Christ I enter 
into it, and stand in it. 

3. This liberty is of the Holy Spirit. ' Where the Spirit of the Lord {$ 



HOLINESS AND LIBERTY. 183 



there Is liberty.' 'If ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law.' A 
heart filled with the Spirit is made free indeed. But we are not made free 
that we may do our own will. No, made free to follow the leading of the 
Holy Spirit. ' Where the Spirit is, there is liberty-' 

4. This liberty is in love. 'Ye were called for freedom ; only use not your 
freedom for an occasion to the flesh, but through loue be servants one to 
another.' The freedom with which the Son makes free is a freedom to become 
like Himself, to loue and to serue. ' Though I was free from all men, I brought 
myself under bondage to all, that I might gain the more.' This is the liberty 
of loue. 

5. ' Being made free from sin, ye became servants of righteousness unto 
ianctifi cation.' 'Let my people go, that they may serue me.' It is only the 
man that doeth righteousness that can become holy. 

6. This liberty is a thing of joy and singing. 

7. This liberty is the groundwork of holiness. The Redeemer who makes 
free is God the Holy One. As the Holy Spirit He leads Into the full possession 
of it. To be so free from everything that God can take complete possession, 
is to be holy. 



184 HOLY IN CHRIST. 



Twenty-first Day. 



HOLY IN CHEIST. 

holiness antr ^appirass, 

•The kingdom of God is joy in the Holy Ghost.' — Rom. xiv. 17. 

♦The disciples were filled with joy and the Holy Ghost.'— 
Acts xiii. 52. 

* Then Nehemiah said, This day is holy nnto the Lord : neither 
be ye sorry, for the joy of the Lord is yonr strength. So the 
Levites stilled the people, saying, Hold your peace ; for the day 
is holy ; neither be ye grieved. And all the people went their 
way to make great mirth, because they had understood the 
words.' — Neh. viii. 10-12. 

THE deep significance of joy in the Christian life 
is hardly understood. It is too often regarded 
as something secondary ; whereas its presence is 
essential as the proof that God does indeed satisfy 
us, and that His service is our delight. In our 
domestic life we do not feel satisfied if all the 
proprieties of deportment are observed, and each 
does his duty to the other ; true love makes us 
happy in each other ; as love gives out its warmth 
of affection, gladness is the sunshine that fills the 
home with its brightness. Even in suffering or 
poverty, the members of a loving family are a joy 



HOLINESS AND HAPPINESS. 185 

to each other. Without this gladness, especially, 
there is no true obedience on the part of the 
children. It is not the mere fulfilment of a com- 
mand, or performance of a service, that a parent 
looks to ; it is the willing, joyful alacrity with 
which it is done that makes it pleasing. 

It is just so in the intercourse of God's children 
with their Father. Even in the effort after a life of 
consecration and gospel obedience, we are continu- 
ally in danger of coming under the law again, with 
its Thou shalt. The consequence always is failure. 
The law only worketh wrath ; it gives neither life 
nor strength. It is only as long as we are standing 
in the joy of our Lord, in the joy of our deliverance 
from sin, in the joy of His love, and what He 
is for us, in the joy of His presence, that we have 
the power to serve and obey. It is only when 
made free from every master, from sin and self 
and the law, and only when rejoicing in this liberty, 
that we have the power to render sendee that is 
satisfying either to God or to ourselves. ' I will see 
you again,' Jesus said, ' and your heart shall rejoice, 
and your joy shall no man take from you/ Joy 
is the evidence and the condition of the abiding 
personal presence of Jesus. 

If holiness be the beauty and the glory of the 
life of faith, it is manifest that here especially the 
element of joy may not be wanting. We have 
already seen how the first mention of God as the 
Holy One was in the song of praise on the shore 
of the Eed Sea ; how Hannah and Mary in theii 



186 HOLY IN CHEIST. 

moments of inspiration praised God as the Holy 
One ; how the name of the Thrice Holy in heaven 
comes to us in the song of the seraphs ; and how 
before the throne both the living creatures and the 
conquering multitude who sing the song of the 
Lamb, adore God as the Holy One. We are to 
' worship Him in the beauty of holiness/ ' to sing 
praise at the remembrance of His Holiness ; ' it is 
only in the spirit of worship and praise and joy 
that we fully can know God as holy. Much 
more, it is only under the inspiration of adoring 
love and joy that we can ourselves be made holy. 
It is as we cease from all fear and anxiety, from all 
strain and effort, and rest with singing in what 
Jesus is in His finished work as our sanctification, 
as we rest and rejoice in Him, that we shall be 
made partakers of His Holiness. It is the day of 
rest, that is the day God has blessed, the day of 
blessing and gladness ; and it is the day He blessed 
that is His holy day. Holiness and blessedness 
are inseparable. 

But is not this at variance with the teaching of 
Scripture and the experience of the saints ? Are not 
suffering and sorrow among God's chosen means of 
sanctification ? Are not the promises to the broken 
in heart, the poor in spirit, and the mourner ? Are 
not self-denial and the forsaking of all we have, 
the crucifixion with Christ and the dying daily, the 
path to holiness ? and is not all this more matter of 
sorrow and pain than of joy and gladness ? 

The answer will be found in the right appre* 



HOLINESS AND HAPPINESS. 187 

hension of the life of faith. Faith lifts above, and 
gives possession of, what is the very opposite of 
what we feel or experience. In the Christian life 
there is always a paradox : what appear irreconcil- 
able opposites are found side by side at the same 
moment. Paul expresses it in the words, 'As 
dying, and, behold, we live ; as sorrowful, yet always 
rejoicing ; as poor, yet making many rich ; as having 
nothing, yet possessing all things.' And elsewhere 
thus, ' When I am weak, then am I strong.' The 
apparent contradiction has its reconciliation, not 
only in the union of the two lives, the human and 
the Divine, in the person of each believer, but 
specially in our being, at one and the same moment, 
partakers of the death and the resurrection of 
Christ. Christ's death was one of pain and suffer- 
ing, a real and terrible death, a rending asunder of 
the bonds that united soul and body, spirit and 
flesh. The power of that death works in us : we 
must let it work mightily if we are to live holy ; 
for in that death He sanctified Himself, that we 
ourselves might be sanctified in truth. Our holiness 
is like His, in the death to our own will, and to all 
our own life. But — this we must seek to grasp — 
we do not approach death from the side from which 
Christ met it, as an enemy to be conquered, as a 
suffering to be borne, before the new life can be 
entered on. No, the believer who knows what 
Christ is as the Eisen One, approaches death, the 
crucifixion of self and the flesh and the world, from 
the resurrection side, the place of victory, in the 



188 HOLY IN CHRIST. 

power of the Living Christ. When we were 
baptized into Christ, we were baptized into His 
death and resurrection as ours ; and Christ Himself, 
the Eisen Living Lord, leads us triumphantly into 
the experience of the power of His death. And so, to 
the believer who truly lives by faith, and seeks not 
in his own stragglings to crucify and mortify the 
flesh, but knows the living Lord, the deep resurrec- 
tion joy never for a moment forsakes Him, but is his 
strength for what may appear to others to be only 
painful sacrifice and cross-bearing. He says with 
Paul, ' I glory in the cross through which I have been 
crucified.' He never, as so many do, asks Paul's 
question, i Who shall deliver rne from the body of this 
death ? ' without sounding the joyful and triumph- 
ant answer as a present experience, ' I thank God, 
through Jesus Christ our Lord/ ' Thanks be to God, 
which always leadeth us in triumph in Christ.' It 
is the joy of a Present Saviour, of the experience of 
a perfect salvation, the joy of a resurrection life, which 
alone gives the power to enter deeply and fully into 
the death that Christ died, and yield our will and 
our life to be wholly sanctified to God. In the joy 
of that life, from which the power of the death is 
never absent, it is possible to say with the Apostle 
each moment, ■ As dying, and, behold, we live ; as 
sorrowful, yet always rejoicing.' 

Let us seek to learn the two lessons : Holiness 
is essential to true happiness ; happiness essential 
to true holiness. Holiness is essential to trua 
happiness. If you would have joy, the fulness 



HOLINESS AND HAPPINESS. 189 

of joy, an abiding joy which nothing can take 
away, be holy as God is holy. Holiness is 
blessedness. Nothing can darken or interrupt our 
joy but sin. Whatever be our trial or temptation, 
the joy of Jesus of which Peter says, 'in whom ye 
now rejoice with joy unspeakable/ can more than 
compensate and outweigh. If we lose our joy, it 
must be sin. It may be an actual transgression, or 
an unconscious following of self or the world ; it 
may be the stain on conscience of something doubt- 
ful, or it may be unbelief that would live by sight, 
and thinks more of itself and its joy than of the 
Lord alone : whatever it be, nothing can take away 
our joy but sin. If we would live lives of joy, 
assuring God and man and ourselves that our Lord 
is everything, is more than all to us, oh, let us be 
holy ! Let us glory in Him who is our holiness : 
in His presence is fulness of joy. Let us live in 
the Kingdom which is joy in the Holy Ghost ; the 
Spirit of holiness is the Spirit of joy, because He 
is the Spirit of God. It is the saints, God's holy 
ones, who will shout for joy. 

And happiness is essential to true holiness. If 
you would be a holy Christian, you must be a happy 
Christian. Jesus was anointed by God with 'the 
oil of gladness/ that He might give us • the oil of 
joy/ In all our efforts after holiness, the wheels 
will move heavily if there be not the oil of joy ; 
this alone removes all strain and friction, and 
makes the onward progress easy and delightful. 
Study to understand the Divine worth of joy. It 



190 HOLY IN CHRIST. 

is the evidence of your being in the Father's 
presence, and dwelling in His love. It is the 
proof of your being consciously free from the law 
and the strain of the spirit of bondage. It is the 
token of your freedom from care and responsibility, 
because you are rejoicing in Christ Jesus as your 
Sanctification, your Keeper, and your Strength. It 
is the secret of spiritual health and strength, filling 
all your service with the childlike happy assurance 
that the Father asks nothing that He does not give 
strength for, and that He accepts all that is done, 
however feebly, in this spirit. True happiness is 
always self -forgetful : it loses itself in the object 
of its joy. As the joy of the Holy Ghost fills us, 
and we rejoice in God the Holy One, through 
our Lord Jesus Christ, we lose ourselves in the 
adoration and worship of the Thrice Holy, we 
become holy. This is, even here in the wilderness, 
' the Highway of Holiness : the ransomed of the 
Lord shall come with singing ; the redeemed shall 
walk there ; everlasting joy shall be upon their 
heads ; they shall obtain joy and gladness/ 

Do all God's children understand this ? that 
holiness is just another name, the true name, that 
God gives for happiness ; that it is indeed unutter- 
able blessedness to know that God does make us 
holy, that our holiness is in Christ, that Christ's 
Holy Spirit is within us. There is nothing so 
attractive as joy : have believers understood it that 
this is the joy of the Lord — to be holy ? Or is 
not the idea of strain, and sacrifice, and sighing, 



HOLINESS AND HAPPINESS. 191 

of difficulty and distance so prominent, that the 
thought of being holy has hardly ever made the 
heart glad ? If it has been so, let it be so no 
longer. ' Thou shalt glory in the Holy One of 
Israel : ' let us claim this promise. Let the 
believing assurance that our Loving Father, and 
our Beloved Lord Jesus, and the Holy Spirit, 
who in dove-like gentleness rests within us, have 
engaged to do the work and are doing it, fill us with 
gladness. Let us not seek our joy in what we see 
in ourselves of holiness : let us rejoice in the 
Holiness of God in Christ as ours ; let us rejoice 
in the Holy One of Israel. So shall our joy be 
unspeakable and unceasing ; so shall we give Him 
the glory. 

Be ye holy, as I am holy. 



Most Blessed God ! I beseech Thee to reveal to 
me and to all Thy children the secret of rejoicing 
in Thee, the Holy One of Israel. 

Thou seest how much of the service of Thine 
own dear children is still in the spirit of bondage, 
and how many have never yet believed that the 
Highway of Holiness is one on which they shall 
walk with singing, and shall obtain joy and gladness. 
Father ! teach Thy children to rejoice in Thee. 

I ask Thee especially to teach us that, in deep 
poverty of spirit, in humility and contrition and 
utter emptiness, in the consciousness that there is 
no holiness in us, we can sing all the day of Thy 



192 HOLY IN CHKIST. 

Holiness as ours, of Thy glory which Thou layest 
upon us, and which yet all the time is Thine alone. 
Father ! open wide to Thy children the blessed 
mystery of the Kingdom, even the faith which sees 
all in Christ and nothing in itself ; which indeed 
has and rejoices in all in Him ; which never has or 
rejoices in ought in itself. 

Blessed God, in Thy Word Thou hast said, ' The 
meek shall increase their joy in the Lord, and the 
poor among men shall rejoice in the Holy One of 
Israel.' Oh, give us, by Thy Holy Spirit, in meek- 
ness and poverty of spirit, to live so in Christ, that 
His Holiness may be our ever-increasing joy, and 
that in Thyself, the Holy One of Israel, we may 
rejoice all the day. And may all see in us what 
blessedness it is to live as God's holy ones. 
Amen. 



1. The great hindrance to joy in God is expecting to find something in our- 
selves to rejoice over. At the commencement of this pursuit of holiness we 
always expect to see a great change wrought in ourselves. As we are led 
deeper into what faith, and the faith-life is, we understand how, though we 
do not see the change as we expected, we may yet rejoice with joy unspeakable 
in what Jesus is. This is the secret of holiness. 

2. Joy must be cultivated. To rejoice is a command more frequently given 
than we know, it is part of the obedience of faith, to rejoice when we do not 
feel like doing so. Faith rejoices and sings, because God is holy. 

3. 'Filled with joy and the Holy Ghost,' 'The Kingdom is joy in the Holy 
Ghost.' The Holy Spirit, the Blessed Spirit of Jesus is within thee, a very 
fountain of living water, of joy and gladness. Oh, seek to know Him, who 
dwells in thee, to work all that Jesus has for thee : He will be in thee the 
Spirit of faith and of joy. 

4. Love and joy ever keep company. Love, denying and forgetting itself for 
the brethren and the lost, living in them, finds the joy of God. 'The kingdom 
of God is joy in the Holy Ghost' 



IN CHRIST OUE SANCTIFICATION. 193 



Twenty-second Day. 



HOLY IN CHKIST. 

En Cfjrtst our cSanctificattott* 

* Of God are ye in Christ Jesus, who was made unto us wisdom 
from God, both righteousness and sanctification and redemption; 
that, according as it is written, He that glorieth, let him glory- 
in the Lord.'— 1 Cor. i. 30, 31. 

THESE words lead us on now to the very centre 
of God's revelation of the way of holiness. 
We know the steps of the road leading hither. He 
is holy, and holiness is His. He makes holy by 
coming near. His presence is holiness. In Christ's 
life, the holiness that had only been revealed in 
symbol, and as a promise of good things to come, 
had really taken possession of a human will, and 
been made one with true human nature. In His 
death every obstacle had been removed that could 
prevent the transmission of that holy nature to us : 
Christ had truly become our sanctification. In the 
Holy Spirit the actual communication of that holi- 
ness took place. And now we want to understand 
what the work is the Holy Spirit does, and how He 
communicates this holy nature to us: what our 

N 



3 94 HOLY IN CHRIST. 

relation is to Christ as our sanctification, and what 
the position we have to take up toward Him, that 
in its fulness and its power it may do its work 
for us. 

The Divine answer to this question is, ' Of God 
are ye in Christ! The one thing we need to appre- 
hend is, what this our position and life in Christ is, 
and how that position and life may on our part be 
accepted and maintained. Of this we may be sure, 
that it is not something that is high and beyond 
our reach. There need be no exhausting effort 
or hopeless sighing, ' Who shall ascend into heaven, 
that is, to bring Christ down from above ? ' It is a 
life that is meant for the sinful and the weary, for 
the unworthy and the impotent. It is a life that is 
the gift of the Father's love, and that He Himself 
will reveal in each one who comes in childlike trust 
to Him. It is a life that is meant for our every-day 
life, that in every varying circumstance and situa- 
tion will make and keep us holy. 

6 Of God are ye in Christ! Ere our Blessed 
Lord left the world, He spake : Lo ! I am with you 
alway, even to the end of the world. And it is 
written of Him : ' He that descended is the same 
that ascended far above all the heavens, that He 
might fill all things.' * The Church is His body, the 
fulness of Him that filleth all in all.' In the Holy 
Spirit the Lord Jesus is with His people here on 
earth. Though unseen, and not in the flesh, His 
Personal Presence is as real on earth as when Hq 
walked with His disciples. In regeneration the 



IN CHRIST OUR SANCTIFICATION. 195 

believer is taken out of his old place 4 in the flesh ; 
he is no longer in the flesh, but in the spirit ; he is 
really and actually in Christ. The living Christ is 
around him by His holy Presence. Wherever and 
whatever he be, however ignorant of his position or 
however unfaithful to it, there he is in Christ. By 
an act of Divine and omnipotent grace, he has been 
planted into Christ, encircled on every side by the 
Power and the Love of Him who filleth all things, 
whose fulness specially dwells in His body here 
below, the Church. 

And how can one who is longing to know 
Christ fully as his sanctifi cation, come to live out 
what God means and has provided in this — 'in 
Christ ' ? The first thing that must be remembered 
is that it is a thing of faith and not of feeling. The 
promise of the indwelling and the quickening of the 
Holy One is to the humble and contrite. Just 
when I feel most deeply that I am not holy, and 
can do nothing to make myself holy, when I feel 
ashamed of myself, just then is the time to turn 
from self and very quietly to say : I am in Christ. 
Here He is all around me. Like the air that 
surrounds me, like the light that shines on me, here 
is my Lord Jesus with me in His hidden but Divine 
and most real presence. My faith must in quiet 
rest and trust bow before the Father, of whom and 
by whose Mighty Grace I am in Christ: He will 
reveal it to me with ever-growing clearness and 
power. He does it as I believe, and in believing 
open my whole soul to receive what is implied in 



196 HOLY IN CHRIST. 

it: the sense of sinfulness and unholiness must 
become the strength of my trust and dependence. 
In such faith I abide in Christ. 

But because it is of faith, therefore it is of the 
Holy Spirit. Of God are ye in Christ. It is not 
as if God placed and planted us in Christ, and left 
it to us now to maintain the union. No, God is 
the Eternal One, the God of the everlasting life, 
who works every moment in a power that does not 
for one moment cease. What God gives. He con- 
tinues with a never-ceasing giving. It is He who 
by the Holy Spirit makes this life in Christ a 
blessed reality in our consciousness. 'We have 
received the Spirit of God that we might knoio the 
things that are freely given us of God.' Faith is 
not only dependent on God for the gift it is to 
accept, but for the power to accept. Faith not 
only needs the Son as its filling and its food ; it 
needs the Spirit as its power to receive and hold. 
And so the blessed possession of all that it means 
to be in Christ our sanctification comes as we learn 
to bow before God in believing prayer for the 
Spirit, and in the deep childlike trust that He will 
reveal and glorify in us this Christ our sanctification 
in whom we are. 

And how will the Spirit reveal this Christ in 
whom we are ? It will specially be as ihe Living 
One, the Personal Friend and Master. Christ is 
not only our Example and our Ideal. His life is 
not only an atmosphere and an inspiration, as we 
speak of a man who mightily influences us by his 



IN CHKIST OUR SANCTIFICATION. 197 

writings. Christ is not only a treasury and a 
fulness of grace and power, into which the Spirit is 
to lead us. But Christ is the Living Saviour, with 
a heart that beats with a love that is most tenderly 
human, and yet Divine. It is in this love He 
comes near, and into this love He receives us, when 
the Father plants us into Him. In the power of a 
personal love He wishes to exercise influence, and 
to attach us to Himself. In that love of His we 
have the guarantee that His Holiness will enter us ; 
in that love the great power by which it enters. 
As the Spirit reveals to us where we are dwelling, in 
Christ and His love, and that this Christ is a living 
Lord and Saviour, there wakens within us the 
enthusiasm of a personal attachment, and the devo- 
tion of a loving allegiance, that make us wholly 
His. And it becomes possible for us to believe 
that we can be holy : we feel sure that in the path 
of holiness we can go from strength to strength. 

Such believing insight into our relation to Christ 
as being in Him, and such personal attachment to 
Him who has received us into His love and keeps 
us abiding there, becomes the spring of a new 
obedience. The will of God comes to us in the 
light of Christ's life and His love — each command 
first fulfilled by Him, and then passed on to us as 
the sure and most blessed help to more perfect 
fellowship with the Father and His Holiness. 
Christ becomes Lord and King in the soul, in the 
power of the Holy Spirit, guiding the will into all 
the perfect will of God, and proving Himself to be 



198 HOLY IN CHRIST. 

its sanctification, as He crowns its obedience with 
ever larger inflow of the Presence and the Holiness 
of God. 

Is there any dear child of God at all disposed to 
lose heart as he thinks of what manner of man he 
ought to be in all holy living, let me call him to 
take courage. Could God have devised anything 
more wonderful or beautiful for such sinful, impotent 
creatures ? Just think, Christ, God's own Son, made 
to be sanctification to you. The Mighty, Loving, 
Holy Christ, sanctified through suffering that He 
might have sympathy with you, given to make you 
holy. What more could you desire ? Yes, there is 
more : ' Of God you are in Him! Whether you 
understand it or not, however feebly you realize it, 
there it is, a thing most Divinely true and real. 
You are in Christ, by an act of God's own Mighty 
Power. And there, in Christ, God Himself longs to 
establish and confirm you to the end. And you 
have, greatest wonder of all, the Holy Spirit within 
you to teach you to know, and believe, and receive, 
all that there is in Christ for you. And if you 
will but confess that there is in you no wisdom or 
power for holiness, none at all, and allow Christ, 
' the Wisdom of God and the Power of God/ by the 
Holy Spirit within you, to lead you on, and prove 
how completely, how faithfully, how mightily, He 
can be your sanctification, He will do it most 
gloriously. 

my brother ! come and consent more fully to 
God's way of holiness. Let Christ be your sanctifi- 



IN CHEIST OUE SANCTIFICATION". 199 

cation. Not a distant Christ to whom you look, but 
a Christ very near, all around you, in whom you 
are. Not a Christ after the flesh, a Christ of 
the past, but a present Christ in the power of the 
Holy Ghost. Not a Christ whom you can know 
by your wisdom, but the Christ of God, who is a 
Spirit, and whom the Spirit within you, as you die 
to the flesh and self, will reveal in power. Not a 
Christ such as your little thoughts can frame a con- 
ception of, but a Christ according to the greatness 
of the heart and the love of God. Oh, come and 
accept this Christ, and rejoice in Him ! Be content 
now to leave all your feebleness, and foolishness, and 
faithlessness to Him, in the quiet confidence that He 
will do for you more than you can think. And so 
let it henceforth be, as it it written, He that 
glorieth, let him glory in the Lord 

Be ye holy, as I am holy. 



Most Blessed Father ! I bow in speechless 
adoration before the holy mystery of Thy Divine 
Love. . . . 

Oh, forgive me, that I have known and believed 
it so little as it is worthy of being known and 
believed. 

Accept my praise for what I have seen and 
tasted of its Divine blessedness. Accept, Lord 
God ! of the praise of a glad and loving heart that 
only knows that it never can praise Thee aright. 

And hear my prayer, my Father ! that in the 



200 HOLY IN CHRIST. 

power of Thy Holy Spirit, who dwells in me, I may 
each day accept and live out fully what Thou hast 
given me in Christ my sanctification. May the 
unsearchable riches there are in Him be the daily 
supply for my every need. May His Holiness, as 
delight in Thy will, indeed become mine. Teach 
above all how this can most surely be, because I 
am, through the work of Thine Almighty Quickening 
Power, in Him, kept there by Thyself. My Father ! 
my faith cries out : I can be holy, blessed be my 
Lord Jesus ! 

In this faith I yield myself to Thee, Lord Jesus, 
my King and Master, to do Thy will alone. In 
everything I do, great or small, I would act as one 
sanctified in Jesus, united to God's will in Him. 
It is Thou alone canst teach me to do this, canst give 
me strength to perform it. But I trust in Thee — 
art Thou not Christ my sanctification ? Blessed 
Lord ! I do trust Thee. Amen. 



1. Christ, as He lived and died on earth, is our sanctification. His life, 
the Spirit of His life, is what constitutes our holiness. To be in perfect 
harmony with Christ, to have His mind, is to be holy. 

2. Christ's Holiness had two sides. God sanctified Him by His Spirit: 
Christ sanctified Himself by following the leading of the Spirit, by giving up 
His will to God in everything. So God has made us holy in Christ ; and so 
we follow after and perfect holiness by yielding ourselves to God's Spirit, by 
giving up our will and living in the will of God. 

3. It is well that we take in every aspect of what God has revealed of 
holiness in His word. But let us never weary ourselves by seeking to grasp 
all completely. Let us even return to the simplicity that is in Jesus. To 
bow at His feet, to believe that He knows all we need, and has it all, and 
loves to give it all, is rest. And holiness is resting in Jesus the rest of God. 
Let all our thoughts be gathered up into this one : Jesus, Blessed Jesus. 

4. This holy life in Christ is for to-day, when you read this. For to-dag 
He is made of God unto you sanctification i to-day He will indeed be your 
holiness. Believe in Him for it ; trust Him, praise Him. And remembers 
you are in Him, 



HOLINESS AND THE BODY. 201 



Twenty-third Day. 



HOLY IN CHEIST. 

holiness antr tfje Befog* 

• The temple of God is holy, which temple ye are. The body is 
for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. Know ye not that your 
body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you ; therefore 
glorify God in your body.'— 1 Cor. iii. 16, vi. 13, 19. 

' She that is unmarried is careful for the things of the Lord, 
that she may be holy both in body and spirit.' — 1 Cor. vii. 34. 

* Present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to 
God.' — Rom. xii. 1. 

COMING into the world, our Blessed Lord spake : 
' A body didst Thou prepare for me ; lo, I 
come to do Thy will, O God/ Leaving this world 
again, it was in His own body that He bore our sins 
upon the tree. So it was in the body, no less than in 
soul and spirit, that He did the will of God. And 
therefore it is said, ' By which will we have been 
sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus 
Christ once for all/ 

When praying for the Thessalonians and their 
sanctification, Paul says, 'And the God of peace 
Himself sanctify you wholly ; and may your spirit 
and soul and body be preserved entire, without blame, 



202 HOLY IN CHKIST. 

at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ/ Of him- 
self he had spoken as ' always bearing about in the 
body the dying of Jesus, that the life also of Jesus 
may be manifested in our body. For we which live 
are always delivered unto death for Jesus' sake, that 
the life also of Jesus may be manifested in our 
mortal flesh! His earnest expectation and hope 
was, l that Christ be magnified in my body, whether 
by life or by death/ The relation between body 
and spirit is so intimate, the power of sin in the 
spirit comes so much through the body, the body is 
so distinctly the object both of Christ's redemption 
and the Holy Spirit's renewal, that our study of 
holiness will be seriously defective if we do not 
take in the teaching of Scripture on holiness in the 
body. 

It has been well said that the body is, to the 
soul and spirit dwelling and acting within it, like 
the walls of the city. Through them the enemy 
enters in. In time of war, everything yields to the 
defence of the walls. It is often because the 
believer does not know the importance of keeping 
the walls defended, keeping the body sanctified, 
that he fails in having the soul and spirit preserved 
blameless. Or it is because he does not understand 
that the guarding and sanctifying of the body in all 
its parts must be as distinctly a work of faith, and as 
directly through the mighty power of Jesus and the 
indwelling of the Spirit, as the renewing of the inner 
life, that progress in holiness is so feeble. The rule 
of the city we entrust to Jesus: but the defence of 



HOLINESS AND THE BODY, 203 

the walls we keep in our own hands ; the King 
does not keep us as we expected, and we cannot 
discover the secret of failure. It is the God of 
peace Himself, who sanctifies wholly, who must 
preserve spirit and soul and body entire and without 
blame. The tabernacle with its wood, the temple 
with its stone, were as holy as all included within 
their walls : God's holy ones need the body to be 
holy. 

To realize the full meaning of this, let us remember 
how it was through the body sin entered. 'The 
woman saw that the tree was good for food,' this 
was the temptation in the flesh ; through this the 
soul was reached, * it was a delight to the eyes ; ' 
through the soul it then passed into the spirit, ■ and 
to be desired to make one wise.' In John's descrip- 
tion of what is in the world (1 John ii. 15), we 
find the same threefold division, 'the lust of the 
flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life.' 
And the three temptations of Jesus by Satan 
correspond exactly : he first sought to reach Him 
through the body, in the suggestion to satisfy His 
hunger by making bread ; the second (see Luke iv.) 
appealed to the soul, in the vision of the kingdoms 
of this world and their glory ; the third to the spirit, 
in the call to assert and prove His Divine Sonship 
by casting Himself down. Even to the Son of God 
the first temptation came, as to Adam and all in 
the world, as lust of the flesh, the desire to gratify 
the natural and lawful appetite of hunger. We 
cannot note too carefully that it was on a question 



204 HOLY IN CHRIST. 

of eating what appeared good for food that man'a 
first sin was committed, and that that same question 
of eating to satisfy hunger was the battleground on 
which the Eedeemer's first encounter with Satan 
took place. It is on the question of eating and 
drinking what is good and lawful that more 
Christians than are aware of it are foiled by Satan. 
To have every appetite of the body under the rule 
and regulation of the Holy Spirit appears to some 
needless, to others too difficult. And yet it must 
be, if the body is to be holy, as God's temple, and 
we are to glorify in our body and our spirit. The 
first approaches of sin are made through the body : 
in the body the complete victory will be gained. 

What Scripture teaches as to the intimacy of 
the connection between the body and spirit, 
physiology confirms. What appear at first merely 
physical transgressions leave a stain and have a 
degrading influence on the soul, and through it drag 
down the spirit. And on the other side, spiritual 
sins, sins of thought and imagination and disposition, 
pass through the soul into the body, fix themselves 
in the nervous constitution, and express themselves 
even in the countenance and the habits or tenden- 
cies of the body. Sin must be combated not only 
in the region of the spirit : if we are to perfect 
holiness, we must cleanse ourselves from all defile- 
ment of the flesh and the spirit. ' If through the 
spirit ye do make dead the deeds of the body, ye 
shall live.' If we are indeed to be cleansed from 
sin and made holy unto God, the body, as the 



HOLINESS AND THE BODY. 205 

outworks, must very specially be secured from the 
power of Satan and of sin. 

And how is this to be done ? God has made 
very special provision for this. Holy Scripture 
speaks so explicitly of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit 
that communicates holiness, in connection with the 
body. At first sight it looks as if the word, your 
bodies, were simply used as equivalent to, your 
persons, yourselves. But as the deeper insight into 
the power of sin in the body, and the need of a 
deliverance specially there, quickens our perception, 
we see what is meant by the body being the temple 
of the Holy Spirit. We notice how very specially 
it is of sins in the body that Paul speaks as defiling 
God's holy temple ; and how it is through the 
power of the Holy Ghost in the body that he would 
have us glorify God. ' Know ye not that your body 
is the temple of the Holy Ghost : glorify God there- 
fore, in the power of the Holy Spirit, in your body.' 
The Holy Spirit must not only exercise a restrain- 
ing and regulating influence on the appetites of the 
body and their gratification, so that they be in 
moderation and temperance, — this is only the 
negative side, — but there must be a positively 
spiritual element, making the exercise of natural 
functions a service of holy joy and liberty to the 
glory of God, no longer a threatened hindrance to 
the life of obedience and fellowship, but a means of 
giace, a real help to the spiritual life. It is only in 
a body that is full of the holy life, very entirely 
possessed of God's Spirit, that this will be the case. 



206 HOLY IN CHRIST. 

And how can this be obtained ? In the true 
Christian life, self-denial is the path to enjoyment, 
renunciation to possession, death to life. As long 
as there is ought that we think we have liberty 
and power to use or enjoy aright, if we but do so 
in moderation, we have not yet seen or confessed 
our own unholiness, or the need of the entire 
renewing of the Holy Spirit. It is not enough to 
say, ' Every creature of God is good, if it be received 
with thanksgiving ; ' we must remember the addition, 
'for it is sanctified by the word and by prayer/ 
This sanctifying of every creature and its use is a 
thing as real and solemn as the sanctifying of our- 
selves. And this will only be where, if need be, 
we sacrifice the gift and the liberty to use it, until 
God gives us the power truly to use it to His 
glory alone. Of one of the most sacred of Divine 
institutions, marriage, Paul, who so denounces those 
who would forbid to marry, says distinctly that 
there may be cases in which a voluntary celibacy 
may be the surest and acceptable way of being holy 
both in body and spirit. When to be holy as God 
is holy indeed becomes the great desire and aim of 
life, everything will be cherished or given up as it 
promotes the chief end. The actual and active 
presence of the Holy Spirit in the life of the body 
will be the fire that is kept burning continually on 
the altar. 

And how is this to be attained ? Of the 
body as of the spirit it is God, God in Christ, who 
is our Keeper and our Sanctifier. The guarding of 



HOLINESS AND THE BODY. 207 

the walls of the city must be entrusted to Him 
who rules within. ' I am persuaded that He is 
able to guard my deposit,' to keep that which I 
have committed to Him, must become as definitely 
true of the body, and of each of its functions of 
which we are conscious that it is the occasion of 
doubt or of stumbling, as it has been of the soul 
we entrusted to Him for salvation. A fixed deposit 
in a bank is money given away out of my hands to 
be kept there : the body or any part of it that needs 
to be made holy must be a deposit with Jesus. 
Faith must trust His acceptance and guarding of 
it ; prayer and praise must daily afresh renew 
the assurance, must confirm the committal of the 
deposit, and maintain the fellowship with Jesus. 
Abiding thus in Him and His Holiness, we shall 
receive, in a life of trust and joy, the power to 
prove, even in the body, how fully and wholly we 
are in Him w T ho is made unto us sanctification, how 
real and true the Holiness of God is in His 
people. 

Be ye holy, as I am holy. 



Blessed Lord ! who art my sanctification, I come 
to Thee now with a very special request. Thou 
who didst in Thine own body bear our sins on 
the tree, and of whom it is written, ' We have been 
sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus 
Christ once for all/ be pleased to reveal to me how 
my body may to the full experience the power of 



208 HOLY IN CHRIST. 

Thy wonderful redemption. I do desire in soul 
and body to be holy to the Lord. 

Lord ! I have too little understood that my body 
is the temple of the Holy Ghost, that there is 
nothing in it that can be matter of indifference, that 
its every state and function is to be holiness to the 
Lord. And where I saw that this should be so, 
I have still sought myself to guard from the 
enemy's approaches these the walls of the city. I 
forgot how this part of my being too could alone 
be kept and sanctified by faith, by Thy taking 
and keeping charge of what faith entrusted to Thee. 
Lord Jesus ! I come now to surrender this body 
with all its needs into Thy hands. In weariness 
and nervousness, in excitement and enjoyment, in 
hunger and want, in health and plenty, my 
holy Saviour, let my body be in Thy keeping every 
moment. Thou callest us, 'being made free from 
sin, to present our members as servants of right- 
eousness unto sanctification.' Saviour ! in the faith 
of the freedom from sin which I have in Thee, I 
present every member of my body to Thee : I 
believe the Spirit of life in Thee makes me free 
from the law of sin in my members. Whether 
living or dying, be Thou magnified in my body. 
Amen. 

1. In the tabernacle and temple, the material part was to be in harmony 
with, and the embodiment of, the holiness that dwelt within. It was there- 
fore all made according to the pattern shown in the mount. In the two last 
chapters of Exodus, we have eighteen times 'as the Lord commanded.' 
Everything, even in the exterior, was the embodiment of the will of God. 
Even so our body, as God's temple, must in everything be quickened ana 
sanctified by the holy Spirit 



HOLINESS AND THE BODY. 209 



2. As part of this holiness in the body, Scripture mentions dress. Speak- 
ing of the 'outward adorning of plaiting the hair, of wearing jewels, or 
putting on of apparel,' as inconsistent with 'the apparel of a meek ana 
quiet spirit,' Peter says, 'After this manner aforetime the holy women, 
who hoped in God, adorned themselves.' Holiness was seen in their dress- 
ing ; their body was the temple of the Holy Spirit. 

3. 'If ye through the Spirit do make dead the deeds of the body, ye shall 
Hue.' His quickening energy must reign through the whole. We are so 
accustomed to connect the spiritual with the ideal and invisible, that it will 
need time and thought and faith to realize how the physical and the sensible 
influence our spiritual life, and must be under the mastery and inspiration 
of God's Spirit. Even Paul says, 'I buffet my body, and bring it into 
bondage, lest I myself should be rejected.' 

4. If God actually breathed His Spirit into the body of Adam formed out 
of the ground, let it not be thought strange that the Holy Spirit would now 
animate our bodies too with His sanctifying energy. 

5. 'Corporeality is the end of the ways of God.' This deep saying of an 
old divine reminds us of a much neglected truth. The great work of God's 
Spirit is to ally Himself with matter, and form it into a spiritual body for 
a dwelling for God. In our body the Holy Spirit will do it, if He gets 
complete possession. 

6. It is on this truth of the Holy Spirit's power over the body that what is 
called Faith-healing rests. Through all ages, in times of special spiritual 
quickening, God has given it to some to see how Christ would make, even 
here, the body partaker of the life and power of the Spirit. To those who 
do see it, the link between Holiness and Healing is a very close and blessed 
one* as the Lord Jesus takes possession of the body for Himself, 



210 holy m chuist. 



Twenty- fourth Day. 



HOLY m CHEIST. 

holiness atxU Cleansing* 

* Having therefore these promises, beloved, let us cleanse our- 
selves from all defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness 
in the fear of God.' — 2 Cor. vii. 1. 

THAT holiness is more than cleansing, and must 
be preceded by it, is taught us in more than 
one passage of the New Testament. ' Christ loved 
the Church, and gave Himself up for it, that He 
might sanctify it, having cleansed it by the washing 
of water with the word/ ' If a man cleanse him- 
self from these, he shall be a vessel sanctified' 
The cleansing is the negative side, the being separate 
and not touching the unclean thing, the removal of 
impurity ; the sanctifying, the positive union and 
fellowship with God, and the participation of the 
graces of the Divine life and holiness (2 Cor. 
vi. 17, 18). So we read too of the altar, that God 
spake to Moses : ' Thou shalt cleanse the altar, 
when thou makest atonement for it, and thou shalt 
anoint it, to sanctify it' (Ex. xxix. 36). Cleansing 



HOLINESS AND CLEANSING. 211 

must ever prepare the way, and ought always to 
lead on to holiness. 

Paul speaks of a twofold defilement of the flesh 
and the spirit, from which we must cleanse our- 
selves. The connection between the two is so close, 
that in every sin both are partakers. The lowest 
and most carnal form of sin will enter the spirit, 
and, dragging it down into partnership in crime, 
will defile and degrade it. And so will the defile- 
ment of the spirit in course of time show its power 
in the flesh. Still we may speak of the two classes 
of sins as they owe their origin more directly to the 
flesh or the spirit. 

- Let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of the 
flesh' The functions of our body may be classed 
under the three heads of nourishment, propagation 
and protection of our life. Through the first the 
world with its food daily solicits our appetite with 
its food and drink. As the fruit good for food 
was the temptation that overcame Eve, so the 
pleasures of eating and drinking are among the 
earliest forms of defilement of the flesh. Closely 
connected with this is what we named second, and 
which is in Scripture specially connected with the 
word flesh. We know how in Paradise the sinful 
eating was at once followed by the awakening of 
smful lust and of shame. In his First Epistle to 
the Corinthians, Paul closely connects the two 
(1 Cor. vi. 13, 15), as he also links drunkenness 
and impurity (1 Cor. vi. 9, 10). Then cornea 
the third form in which the vitality of the body 



212 HOLY IN CHRIST. 

displays itself : the instinct of self - preservation, 
setting itself against everything that interferes 
with our pleasures and comfort. What is called 
temper, with its fruits of anger and strife, has its 
roots in the physical constitution, and is one among 
the sins of the flesh. From all this, the Christian, 
who would be holy, must most determinedly cleanse 
himself. He must yield himself to the searching of 
God's Spirit, to be taught what there is in the flesh 
that is not in harmony with the temperance and 
self-control demanded both by the law of nature 
and the law of the Spirit. He must believe, what 
Paul felt that the Corinthians so emphatically 
needed to be taught, that the Holy Spirit dwells in 
the body, making its members the members of 
Christ, and in this faith put off the works of the 
flesh ; he must cleanse himself from all defilement of 
the flesh. 

\ And of the spirit. 9 As the source of all defile- 
ment of the flesh is self-gratification, so self-seeking 
is at the root of all defilement of the spirit. In 
relation to God, it manifests itself in idolatry, be it in 
the worship of other gods after our own heart, the 
love of the world more than God, or the doing our 
will rather than His. In relation to our fellow-men 
it shows itself in envy, hatred, and want of love, 
cold neglect or harsh judging of others. In relation 
to ourselves it is seen as pride, ambition, or envy, 
the disposition that makes self the centre round 
which all must move, and by which all must be 
judged. Such defilement of the spirit, even more 



HOLINESS AND CLEANSING. 213 

than with the sins of the flesh, must the believer 
cry for the light of the Holy Spirit to search and 
reveal ; that the uncleanness may indeed be cleansed 
out and cast away for ever. Even unconscious sin, 
if we are not earnestly willing to have it shown 
to us, will most effectually prevent our progress in 
the path of holiness. 

1 Beloved ! let us cleanse ourselves.' The cleansing 
is sometimes spoken of as the work of God (Acts xv. 
9 ; 1 John i. 9) ; sometimes as that of Christ (John 
xv. 3 ; Eph. v. 26 ; Tit. ii. 14). Here we are com- 
manded to cleanse ourselves. God does His work 
in us by the Holy Spirit ; the Holy Spirit does His 
work by stirring us up and enabling us to do. The 
Spirit is the strength of the new life ; in that 
strength we must set ourselves determinedly to cast 
out whatever is unclean. ' Come out, and be ye 
separate, and touch not the unclean thing/ It is 
not only the doing what is sinful, it is not even the 
willing of it, that the Christian must avoid, but even 
the touching it : the involuntary contact with it 
must be so unbearable as to force the cry, O 
wretched man that I am ! and to lead on to the 
deliverance which the Spirit of the life of Christ 
does bring. 

And how is this cleansing to be done ? When 
Hezekiah called the priests to sanctify the temple 
that had been defiled, we read (2 Chron. xxix.), ' The 
priests went in unto the inner part of the house 
of the Lord to cleanse it, and brought out all the 
uncleanness that they found.' Only then could tba 



214 HOLT m CHRIST. 

sin-offering of atonement and the burnt-offering oS 
consecration, with the thankofferings, be brought, and 
God's service be restored. Even thus must all that 
is unclean be looked out, and brought out, and 
utterly cast out. However deeply rooted the sin 
may appear, rooted in constitution and habit, we 
must cleanse ourselves of it if we would be holy. 
' If we walk in the light, as He is in the light, the 
blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin/ As 
we bring out every sin from the inner part of the 
house into the light of God and walk in the light, 
the precious blood that justifies will work mightily 
to cleanse too : the blood brings into living contact 
with the life and the love of God. Let us come 
into the light with the sin : the blood will prove 
its mighty power. Let us cleanse ourselves in 
yielding ourselves to the light to reveal and con- 
demn, to the blood to cleanse and sanctify. 

'Let us cleanse ourselves, perfecting holiness in 
the fear of the Lord' We read in Hebrews (x. 14), 
■ Christ hath perfected for ever them that are sancti- 
tified.' As we have so often seen that what God has 
made holy man must make holy too, as he accepts and 
appropriates the holiness God has bestowed, so here 
with the perfection which the saints have in Christ. 
We must perfect holiness : holiness must be carried 
out into the whole of life, and carried on even to its 
end. As God's holy ones, we must go on to perfec- 
tion, perfecting holiness. Do not let us be afraid of 
the word. Our Blessed Lord used it when He gave 
us the command, ' Be ye perfect, even as your Father 



HOLINESS AND CLEANSING. 215 

in heaven is perfect/ A child striving after the 
perfection in knowledge of his profession, which he 
hopes to attain when he has finished school, is told 
by his teacher that the way to the perfection he 
hopes for at the end of his course is to seek to be 
perfect in the lessons of each day. To be perfect in 
the small portion of the work that each hour brings, 
is the path to the perfection that will crown the 
whole. The Master calls us to a perfection like 
that of the Father : He hath already perfected us 
in Himself : He holds out the prospect of perfection 
ever growing. His word calls us here day by day 
to be perfecting holiness. Let us seek in each duty 
to be whole-hearted and entire. Let us, as teachable 
scholars, in every act of worship or obedience, in 
every temptation and trial, do the very best which 
God's Spirit can enable us to do. ' Let patience 
have its perfect work, that ye may be perfect and 
entire, lacking in nothing.' 'The God of peace 
make you perfect in every good work to do His will/ 
' Having therefore these promises, beloved, let us 
cleanse ourselves from all defilement of the flesh and 
spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.' It is 
faith that gives the courage and the power to cleanse 
from all defilement, perfecting holiness in the fear 
of God. It is as the promises of the Divine love 
and indwelling (2 Cor. vi. 16—18) are made ours 
by the Holy spirit, that we shall share the victory 
which overcometh the world, even our faith. In the 
path along which we have already come, from the rest 
in Paradise down through Holy Scripture, we have 



216 HOLY IN CHEIST. 

seen the wondrous revelation of these promises in 
ever-growing splendour. That God the Holy One 
will make us holy ; that God the Holy One will 
dwell with the lowly ; that God in His Holy One 
has come to be our holiness ; that God has planted 
us in Christ that He may be our sanctification ; 
that God, who chose us in sanctification of the Spirit, 
has given us the Holy Spirit in our hearts, and now 
watches over us in His love to work out through 
Him His purposes and to perfect our holiness : such 
are the promises that have been set before us. 
' Having therefore these promises, beloved, let us 
cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and 
spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God/ 

Beloved brother ! see here again God's way of 
holiness. Arise and step on to it in the faith of 
the promise, fully persuaded that what He hath 
promised He is mighty to perform. Bring out of 
the inner part of the house all uncleanness ; bring 
it into the light of God ; confess it and cast it at 
His feet, who takes it away, and cleanses you in 
His blood. Yield yourself in faith to perfect, in 
Christ your Strength, the Holiness to which you are 
called. As your Father in heaven is perfect, give 
yourself to Him as a little child to be perfect too in 
your daily lessons and your daily walk. Believe 
that your surrender is accepted : that the charge 
committed to Him is undertaken. And give glory 
to Him who is able to do above what you can ask 
or think. 

Be ye holy, as I am holy. 



HOLINESS AND CLEANSING. 217 

Holy Lord Jesus ! Thou didst give Thyself for us, 
that, having cleansed us for Thyself as Thine own, 
Thou mightest sanctify us and present us to Thyseli 
a glorious Church, not having spot or wrinkle or 
any such thing. Blessed be Thy Name for the 
wonderful love. Blessed be Thy Name for the 
wonderful cleansing. Through the washing by the 
word and the washing in the blood, Thou hast made 
us clean every whit. And as we walk in the light, 
Thou cleansest every moment. 

With these promises, in the power of Thy work 
and blood, Thou callest us to cleanse ourselves from 
all defilement of the flesh and spirit. Blessed Lord ! 
graciously reveal in Thy Holy Light all that is defile- 
ment, even its most secret working. Let me live as 
one who is to be presented to Thee without spot or 
wrinkle or any such thing — cleansed with a Divine 
cleansing, because Thou gavest Thyself to do it. 
L T nder the living power of Thy word and blood, 
applied by the Holy Spirit, let my way be clean, 
and my hands clean, my lips clean, and my heart 
clean. Cleanse me thoroughly, that I may walk 
with Thee in white here on earth, keeping my 
garments unspotted and undefiled. For Thy great 
love's sake, my Blessed Lord. Amen. 

1. Cleansing has almost always one aim : a cleansed vessel fs fit for use. 
Spiritual work done for God, with the honest desire that He may through 
His Spirit use us, will give urgency to our desire for cleansing. A vessel 
not cleansed cannot be used : is not this the reason that there are some workers 
God cannot bless ? 

2. All defilement: one stain defiles. 'Let us cleanse ourselves from alt 
defilement.' 

3. No cleansing without Light Open the heart for the Light to shine in. 



218 HOLY m CHRIST. 

4. No cleansing like fire. Give the defilement over to the fire of His Holiness, 
the fire that consumes and purifies. Give it into the death of Jesus, to Jesus 
Himself. 

5. 'Perfecting holiness in the fear of God : ' it is a solemn work. Rejoice 
with trembling— work out your salvation with fear and trembling. 

6. 'Having these promises,' it is a blessed work to cleanse ourselves— entering 
into the promises, the purity, the love of our Lord. The fear of God need never 
hinder the faith in Him. And true faith will never hinder the practical work 
of cleansing. 

7. If we walk in the light, the "blood cleanseth. The light reveals ; we 
confess and forsake, and accept the blood ; so we cleanse ourselves. Let 
there be a very determined purpose to be clean from all defilement, everything 
that our Father considers a stain, 



EOLY AND BLAMELESS. 219 



Twenty-fifth Day. 



HOLY m CHEIST. 

I^olg anD Blameless* 

• Ye are witnesses, and God also, how ho lily and justly and 
unblameably we behaved ourselves among you that believe. — 
The Lord make you to increase and abound in love one toward 
another, and toward all men, to the end He may stablish your 
hearts unb/ameable in holiness before our God and Father at the 
coming of our Lord Jesus with all Bis holy ones. 9 — 1 Thess. ii. 10, 
iii. 12, 13. 

' He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that 
we should be holy and without blemish before Him in /oi/e.'— 
Eph. i. 4. 

THEEE are two Greek words, signifying nearly 
the same, used frequently along with the word 
holy, and following it, to express what the result 
and effect of holiness will be as manifested in the 
visible life. The one is translated without blemish, 
spotless, and is that also used of our Lord and His 
sacrifice, the Lamb without blemish (Heb. ix. 14; 
1 Pet. i. 19). It is then used of God's children 
with holy — holy and without blemish (Eph. i. 4, 5, 
27 ; Col. i. 22 ; Phil. ii. 15 ; Jude 24 ; 2 Pet. iii 
14). The other is without blame, faultless (as iu 



220 HOLY IN CHRIST. 

Luke i. 6 ; Phil. ii. 15, iii. 6), and is also found in 
conjunction with holy (1 Thess. ii. 10, iii. 13, v. 23). 
In answer to the question as to whether this blame- 
lessness has reference to God's estimate of the saints 
or men's, Scripture clearly connects it with both. In 
some passages (Eph. i. 4, v. 27 ; Col. i. 22 ; 1 Thess. 
iii. 15) the words 'before Him/ 'to Himself/ 'before 
our God and Father/ indicate that the first thought 
is of the spotlessness and faultlessness in the presence 
of a Holy God, which is held out to us as His pur- 
pose and our privilege. In others (such as Phil. ii. 
15 ; 1 Thess. ii. 10), the blamelessness in the sight 
of men stands in the foreground. In each case the 
word may be considered to include both aspects : 
without blemish and without blame must stand the 
double test of the judgment of God and man too. 

And what is now the special lesson which this 
linking together of these two words in Scripture, 
and the exposition of holy by the addition of 
blameless, is meant to teach us ? A lesson of 
deep importance. In the pursuit of holiness, the 
believer, the more clearly he realizes what a deep 
spiritual blessing it is, to be found only in separa- 
tion from the world, and direct fellowship with God, 
to be possessed fully only through a real Divine 
indwelling, may be in danger of looking too 
exclusively to the Divine side of the blessing, in 
its heavenly and supernatural aspect. He may 
forget how repentance and obedience, as the path 
leading up to holiness, must cover every, even the 
minutest detail of daily Mfe. He may not under- 



HOLY AND BLAMELESS. 221 

stand how faithfulness to the leadings of the Spirit, 
in such measure as we have Him already, faith- 
fulness to His faintest whisper in reference to 
ordinary conduct, is essential to all fuller experience 
of His power and work as the Spirit of holiness. 
He may, above all, not have learnt how, not only 
obedience to what he knows to be God's will, 
but a very tender and willing teachableness to 
receive all that the Spirit has- to show him of his 
imperfections and the Father's perfect will concern- 
ing him, is the only condition on which the Holi- 
ness of God can be more fully revealed to us and 
in us. And so, while most intent on trying to 
discover the secret of true and full holiness from 
the Divine side, he may be tolerating faults which 
all around him can notice, or remaining,- — and that 
not without sin, because it comes from the want 
of perfect teachableness, — ignorant of graces and 
beauties of holiness with which the Father would 
have had him adorn the doctrine of holiness before 
men. He may seek to live a very holy, and yet 
think little of a perfectly blameless life. 

There have been such saints, holy but hard, 
holy but distant, holy but sharp in their judg- 
ments of others ; holy, but men around said, 
unloving and selfish ; the half- heathen Samaritan 
more kind and self-sacrificing than the holy Levite 
and priest. If this be true, it is not the teaching 
of Holy Scripture that is to blame. In linking 
holy and without blemish (or without blame) so 
closely, the Holy Spirit would have led us to seek 



222 holy m CHEIST. 

for the embodiment of holiness as a spiritual power 
in the blamelessness of practice and of daily life. 
Let every believer who rejoices in God's declara- 
tion that he is holy in Christ seek also to perfect 
holiness, reach out after nothing less than to be 
1 nnblameable in holiness/ 

That this blamelessness has very special reference 
to our intercourse with our fellow-men we see from 
the way in which it is linked with love. So in 
Eph. i. 4, ' That we should be holy and without 
blemish before Him in love. 9 But specially in that 
remarkable passage : ' The Lord make you to increase 
and abound in love toward one another, and toward 
all men, to the end He may establish your hearts 
nnblameable in holiness! The holiness and the 
blamelessness, the positive hidden Divine life-prin- 
ciple, and the external and human life-practice — 
both are to find their strength, by which we are to 
be established in them, in our abounding and ever- 
flowing love. 

Holiness and lovingness — it is of deep import- 
ance that these words should he inseparably linked 
in our minds, as their reality in our lives. We 
have seen, in the study of the holiness of God, how 
love is the element in which it dwells and works, 
drawing to itself and making like itself all that it 
can get possession of. Of the fire of Divine holi- 
ness love is the beautiful flame, reaching out to 
communicate itself and assimilate to itself all it can 
lay hold of. In God's children true holiness is the 
same ; the Divine fire burns to bring into its own 



HOLY AND BLAMELESS. 223 

blessedness all that comes within its reach. When 
Jesus sanctified Himself that we might be sanctified 
in truth, that was nothing but love giving itself 
to the death that the sinful might share His holi- 
ness. Selfishness and holiness are irreconcilable. 
Ignorance may think of sanctity as a beautiful 
garment with which to adorn itself before God, 
while underneath there is a selfish pride saying, ' I 
am holier than thou/ and quite content that the 
other should want what it boasts of. True holiness, 
on the contrary, is the expulsion and the death of 
selfishness, taking possession of heart and life to be 
the ministers of that fire of love that consumes 
itself, to reach and purify and save others. Holi- 
ness is love. Abounding love is what Paul prays 
for as the condition of unblameable holiness. It 
is as the Lord makes us to increase and abound in 
love, that He can establish our hearts unblameable 
in holiness. 

The Apostle speaks of a twofold love, ■ love toward 
each other, and toward all men/ Love to the 
brethren was what our Lord Himself enjoined as 
the chief mark of discipleship. And He prayed the 
Father for it as the chief proof to the world of the 
truth of His Divine mission. It is in the holiness 
of love, in a loving holiness, that the unity of the 
body will be proved and promoted, and prepared for 
the fuller workings of the Holy Spirit. In the 
Epistles to the Corinthians and Galatians, division 
and distance among believers are named as the sure 
proof of the life of self and the flesh. Oh, let us, 



224 HOLY m CHRIST. 

if we would be holy, begin by being very gentle, 
and patient, and forgiving, and kind, and generous 
in our intercourse with all the Father's children. 
Let us study the Divine image of the love that 
seeketh not its own, and pray unceasingly that the 
Lord may make us to abound in love to each other. 
The holiest will be the humblest and most self- 
forgetting, the gentlest and most self-denying, the 
kindest and most thoughtful of others for Jesus' 
sake. i Put on therefore, as God's elect, holy and 
beloved, a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, 
meekness, long-suffering' (Col. iii. 12, 13). 

And then the love toward all men. A love proved 
in the conduct and intercourse of daily life. A love 
that not only avoids anger and evil temper and 
harsh judgments, but exhibits the more positive 
virtue of active devotion to the welfare and interests 
of all. A charitable love that cares for the bodies as 
well as the souls. A love that not only is ready to 
help when it is called, but that really gives itself 
up to self-denial and self-sacrifice to seek out and 
relieve the needs of the most wretched and un- 
worthy. A love that does indeed take Christ's love, 
that brought Him from heaven and led Him to 
choose the cross, as the only law and measure for 
its conduct, and makes everything subordinate to 
the Godlike blessedness of giving, of doing good, of 
embracing and saving the needy and lost. Thus 
abounding in love, we shall be unblameable in 
holiness. 

It is in Christ we are holy ; of God we are in 



HOLT AND BLAMELESS. 225 

Christ, who is made of God unto us sanctification : 
it is in this faith that Paul prays that the Lord, our 
Lord Jesus, may make us increase and abound in 
love. The Father is the fountain, He is the 
channel ; the Holy Spirit is the living stream. And 
He is our Life, through the Spirit. It is by faith 
in Him, by abiding in Him and in His love, by 
receiving, in close union with Him, the Spirit to shed 
abroad the love of God, that we shall receive the 
answer to our prayer, and shall by Himself be 
established unblameable in holiness. Let it be with 
us a prayer of faith that changes into praise: 
Blessed be the Lord, who will make us increase and 
abound in love, and will establish us unblameable 
in holiness before our God and Father, at the 
coming of our Lord Jesus with His holy ones. 

Be ye holy, as I am holy. 



Most Gracious God and Father ! again do I 
th nk Thee for that wondrous salvation, through 
sanctification of the Spirit, which has made us 
holy in Christ. And I thank Thee that the 
Spirit can so make us partakers of the life of 
Christ, that we too may be unblameable in holiness. 
And that it is the Lord Himself who makes us to 
increase and abound in love, to the end our hearts 
may be so established ; that the abounding love and 
the unblameable holiness are both from Him. 

Blessed Lord and Saviour ! I come now to 
claim and take as my own, what Thou art able to 

p 



226 HOLY IN CHRIST. 

do for me. I am holy only in Thee ; in Thee I am 
holy. In Thee there is for me the power to abound 
in love. Thou, in whom the fulness of Gods 
love abides, and in whom I abide, the Lord, my 
Lord, make me to abound in love. In union with 
Thee, in the life of faith in which Thou livest in 
me, it can be and it shall be. By the teaching of 
Thy Holy Spirit lead me in all the footsteps of Thy 
self-denying love, that I too may be consumed in 
blessing others. 

And thus, Lord ! mightily establish my heart to 
be unblameable in holiness. Let self perish at Thy 
presence. Let Thy Holiness, giving itself to make 
the sinner holy, take entire possession, until my 
heart and life are sanctified wholly, and my whole 
spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless 
unto Thy coming. Amen. 

1. Let us pray very earnestly that our interest in the study of holiness 
may not be a thing of the intellect or the emotions, but of the will and the 
heart, seen of all men in the daily walk and conversation. 'Abounding in 
love,' 'unblameable in holiness,' will give favour with God and man. 

2. * God is Love ; ' Creation is the outflow of love. Redemption is the sacri- 
fice and the triumph of love. Holiness is the fire of love. The beauty of 
the life of Jesus is love. All we enjoy of the Divine we owe to love. Our 
holiness is not God's, is not Christ's, if we do not love. 

3. 'Love seeketh not its own.' ' Love never faileth.' ' Love is the fulfilling 
of the law.' ' The greatest of them is love.' ' The end of the commandment 
is love.' To love God and man is to be holy. In the intercourse of daily 
life, holiness can have its simple and sweet beginnings and its exercise ; so, 
in its highest attainment, holiness is love made perfect. 

4. Faith has all its worth from love, from the love of God, whence it draws 
and drinks, and the love to God and man which streams out of it. Let us be 
strong in faith, then shall we abound in love. 

5. ' The love of God hath been shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost 
which was given unto us.' Let this be our confidence* 



HOLINESS AND THE WILL OF GOD. 227 



Twenty-sixth Day. 



HOLY m CHEIST. 

holiness anli tfje Mill of ffioir, 

« This is the will of God, even your sanctifi cation. '—1 Thess. 
iv. 3. 

' Lo, I am come to do Thy will. By which will we have been 
sanctified, through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once 
for all.'— Heb. x. 9, 10. 

IN the will of God we have the union of His 
wisdom and power. The wisdom decides and 
declares what is to be : the power secures the per- 
formance. The declarative will is only one side; its 
complement, the executive will, is the living energy 
in which everything good has its origin and exist- 
ence. So long as we only look at the will of God 
as law, it is a burden, because we have not the 
power to perform — it is too high for us. When 
faith looks to the power that works in God's will, and 
carries it out, it has the courage to accept it and 
fulfil it, because it knows God Himself is working 
it out. The surrender to the Divine will as wisdom 
thus becomes the pathway to the experience of it as 
a power. ! He doeth according to His will/ is then 



228 HOLY IN CHRIST. 

the language not only of forced submission, but of 
joyful expectation. 

' This is the will of God, your sanctification.' In 
the ordinary acceptation of these words, they simply 
mean that among many other things that God has 
willed, sanctification is one ; it is something in accord- 
ance with His will. This thought contains teaching 
of great value. God very distinctly and definitely 
has willed your sanctification : your sanctification 
has its source and certainty in its being God's will. 
We are chosen, elect, ' in sanctification of the Spirit,' 
' chosen to be holy : ' it is the purpose of God's will 
from eternity, and His will now is our sanctification. 
We have only to think of what we said of God's 
will being a Divine power that works out what His 
wisdom has chosen, to see what strength it will give 
to our faith that we shall be holy: God wills it, 
and will work it out for all and in all who do not 
resist it, but yield themselves to its power. Seek 
your sanctification, not only in the will of God, 
as a declaration of what He wants you to be, but as 
a revelation of what He Himself will work out in 
you. 

There is, however, another most precious thought 
suggested. If our sanctification be God's will, its 
central thought and its contents, every part of that 
will must bear upon it, and the sure entrance to 
sanctification will be the hearty acceptance of all 
the will of God. To be one with God's will is to 
be holy. Let him who would be holy take his place 
herd and f stand in all the will of God/ He will there 



HOLINESS AND THE WILL OF GOD. 229 

meet God Himself, and be made partaker of His 
Holiness, because His will works out His purpose in 
power to each one who yields himself to it. Every- 
thing in a life of holiness depends upon our being in 
the right relation to the will of God. 

There are many Christians to whom it appears 
impossible to think of their accepting all the will of 
God, or of their being one with it. They look upon 
the will of God in its thousand commands, and its 
thousands of providential orderings. They have 
sometimes found it so hard to obey one single com- 
mand, or to give up willingly to some light disap- 
pointment. They imagine that they would need to 
be a thousandfold more holy and stronger in grace, 
before venturing to say that they do accept all 
God's will, whether to do or to bear. They cannot 
understand that all the difficulty comes from their 
not occupying the right standpoint. They are 
looking at God's will as at variance with their 
natural will, and they feel that that natural will 
will never delight in all God's will. They forget that 
the new man has a renewed will. This new will 
delights in the will of God, because it is born of it. 
This new will sees the beauty and the glory of God's 
will, and is in harmony with it. If they are indeed 
God's children, the very first impulse of the spirit of 
a child is surely to do the will of the Father in 
heaven. And they have but to yield themselves 
heartily and wholly to this spirit of sonship, and 
they need not fear to accept God's will as theirs. 

The mistake they make is a very serious one. 



230 HOLY IN CHEIST. 

Instead of living by faith they judge by feeling, in 
which the old nature speaks and rules. It tells 
them that God's will is often a burden too hard to 
be borne, and that they never can have the strength 
to do it. Faith speaks differently. It reminds us 
that God is Love, and that His will is nothing but 
Love revealed. It asks if we do not know that there 
is nothing more perfect or beautiful in heaven or 
earth than the will of God. It shows us how in 
our conversion we have already professed to accept 
God as Father and Lord. It assures us, above all, 
that if we will but definitely and trustingly give 
ourselves to that will which is Love, it will as Love 
fill our hearts and make us delight in it, and so 
become the power that enables us joyfully to do 
and to bear. Faith reveals to us that the will of 
God is His power, working out its plan in Divine 
beauty in each one who wholly yields to it. 

And which shall we now choose ? And where 
shall we take our place ? Shall we attempt to 
accept Christ as a Saviour without accepting His 
will ? Shall we profess to be the Father's children, 
and yet spend our life in debating how much of His 
will we shall accept ? Shall we be content to go on 
from day to day with the painful consciousness that 
our will is not in harmony with God's will ? Or shall 
we not at once and for ever give up our will as sinful 
to His, which Lie has already begun to write on our 
heart ? This is a thing that is possible. It can be 
done. In a simple, definite transaction with God 
Mi can say that we do aocept His holy will to be 



HOLINESS AND THE WILL OF GOD. 231 

ours. Faith knows that God will not pass such a 
surrender unnoticed, but accept it. In the trust that 
He now takes us up into His will, and undertakes to 
reveal it in us, with the love and the power to perform 
it — in this faith let us enter into God's will, and 
begin a new life ; standing in, abiding in the very 
centre of this most holy will. 

Such an acceptance of God's will prepares the 
believer, through the Holy Spirit, to recognise and 
know that will in whatever form it comes. The 
great difference between the carnal and the spiritual 
Christian is that the latter acknowledges God, under 
whatever low and poor and human appearances He 
manifests Himself. When God comes in trials which 
can be traced to no hand but His, he says, ' Thy will 
be done/ When trials come through the weakness 
of men or his own folly, when circumstances appear 
unfavourable to his religious progress, and tempta- 
tions threaten to be too much for him and to overcome 
him, he learns first of all to see God in everything, 
and still to say, ■ Thy will be done/ He knows that 
a child of God cannot possibly be in any situation 
without the will of His Heavenly Father, even when 
that will has been to leave him to his own wilfulness 
for a time, or to suffer the consequences of his own 
or others' sin. He sees this, and in accepting his 
circumstances as the will of God to try and prove him, 
he is in the right position for now knowing and doing 
what is right. Seeing and honouring God's will thus 
in everything, he learns always to abide in that will 

He does so also by doing that will As his 



232 HOLY IN CHRIST. 

spiritual discernment grows to say of whatever 
happens, 'AH things are of God/ so he grows too 
in wisdom and spiritual understanding to know the 
will of God as it is to be done. In the indications 
of conscience and of Providence, in the teaching of 
the word and the Spirit, he learns to see how God's 
will has reference to every part and duty of life, and 
it becomes his joy, in all things, to live, ' doing the 
will of God from the heart, as unto the Lord and not 
unto men/ ' Labouring fervently in prayer to stand 
complete and fully assured in all the will of God/ 
he finds how blessedly the Father has accepted his 
surrender, and supplies all the light and strength 
that is needed that His will may be done by him 
on earth as it is in heaven. 

Let me ask every reader to say to a Holy God, 
whether he has indeed given himself to Him to be 
made holy ? Whether he has accepted, and entered 
into, and is living in, the good and perfect will of 
God ? The question is not, whether, when affliction 
comes, he accepts the inevitable and submits to a 
will he cannot resist. But whether he has chosen 
the will of God as his chief good, and has taken the 
life-principle of Christ to be his : c I delight to do 
Thy will, O God/ This was the holiness of Christ, 
in which He sanctified Himself and us, the doing 
God's will. ' In which will we have been sancti- 
fied/ It is this will of God which is our 
sanctification. 

Brother ! are you in earnest to be holy ? wholly 
possessed of God ? Here is the path, I plead withi 



HOLINESS AND THE WILL OF GOD. 233 

you not to be afraid or to hold back. Yon have 
taken God to be your God ; have you really taken 
His will to be your will ? Oh, think of the privilege, 
the blessedness, of having one will with God ! and 
fear not to surrender yourself to it most unre- 
servedly. The will of God is, in every part of it, 
and in all His Divine power, your sanctifieation. 

BE YE HOLY, AS I AM HOLY. 



Blessed Father ! I come to say that I see that 
Thy will is my sanctifieation, and there alone I 
would seek it. Graciously grant that, by Thy Holy 
Spirit which dwelleth in me, the glory of that will, 
and the blessedness of abiding in it, may be fully 
revealed to me. 

Teach me to know it as the will of Love, pur- 
posing always what is the very best and most blest 
for Thy child. Teach me to know it as the will of 
Omnipotence, able to work out its every counsel in 
me. Teach me to know it in Christ, fulfilled per- 
fectly on my behalf. Teach me to know it as what the 
Spirit wills and works in each one who yields to Him. 

my Father ! I acknowledge Thy claim to have 
Thy will alone done, and am here for it to do with 
me as Thou pleasest. With my whole heart I enter 
iiicO it, to be one with it for ever. Thy Holy Spirit 
can maintain this oneness without interruption. I 
trust Thee, my Father, step by step, to let the light 
of Thy will shine in my heart and on my path, 
through that Spirit. 



234 HOLY IN CHRIST. 

May this be the holiness in which I live, that I 
forget and lose self in pleasing and honouring Thee. 
Amen. 



1. Make it a study, in meditation and prayer and worship, to get a full 
impression of the Majesty, the Perfection, the Glory of the Will of God, with 
the privilege and possibility of living in it. 

2. Study it, too, as the expression of an Infinite Love and Fatherliness ; its 
every command full of louing-kindness. Every providence is God's will; 
whatever happens, meet God in it in humble worship. Every precept is 
God's will ; meet God in it with loving obedience. Every promise is God's 
will ; meet God in it with full trust. A life in the will of God is rest and 
strength and blessing. 

3. And forget not, above all, to believe in its Omnipotent Power, //eworketh 
all tilings after the counsel of His will, in nature and those who resist in 
Him, without their consent. In His children, according to their faith, and as 
far as they will it. Do believe that the will of God will work out its counsel in 
you, as you trust it to do so. 

4. This will is infinite Benevolence and Beneficence revealed in the self" 
sacrifice of Jesus. Live for others : so can you become an instrument for the 
Divine will to use (Matt, xviii. 14 ; John vi. 39, 40). Yield yourselves to this 
redeeming will of God, that it may get full possession, and work out through 
you too its saving purpose. 

5. Christ is just the embodiment of God's will : He is, God's will done. 
Abide in Him, by abiding in, by domg heartily and always , the will of God. 



HOLINESS AND SERVICE. 235 



Twenty-seventh Day. 



HOLY IN CHEIST. 

&Qlinm an* Serbice* 

• If a man therefore cleanse himself from these, he shall he a 
vessel unto honour, sanctified, meet for the Master's use, pre- 
pared unto every good work."* — 2 Tim. ii. 21. 

'A holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices. A holy 
nation, that ye may show forth the excellences of Him who 
called you out of darkness into His marvellous light.' — 1 Pet. 
ii. 5, 9. 

THEOUGH the whole of Scripture we have 
seen that whatever God sanctifies is to be 
used in the service of His Holiness. His Holi- 
ness is an infinite energy that only finds its 
rest in making holy : to the revelation of what 
He is in Himself, ' I the Lord am holy' God 
continually adds the declaration of what He 
does, ' I am the Lord that make holy! Holiness 
is a burning fire that extends itself, that seeks to 
consume what is unholy, and to communicate its 
holiness to all that will receive it. Holiness and 
selfishness, holiness and inactivity, holiness and 
sloth, holiness and helplessness, are utterly irrecon- 



236 HOLY IN CHRIST. 

cilable. Whatever we read of as holy, was taken 
into the service of the Holiness of God. 

Let us just look back on the revelation of what 
is holy in Scripture. The seventh day was made 
holy, that in it God might make His people holy. 
The tabernacle was holy, to serve as a dwelling for 
the Holy One, as the centre whence His Holiness 
might manifest itself to the people. The altar was 
most holy, that it might sanctify the gifts laid on it. 
The priests with their garments, the house with its 
furniture and vessels, the sacrifices and the blood, 
— whatever bore the name of holy had a use and a 
purpose. Of Israel, whom God redeemed from Egypt 
that they might be a holy nation, God said, ' Let 
my people go, that they may serve me/ The holy 
angels, the holy prophets and apostles, the holy 
Scriptures, — all bore the title as having been sancti- 
fied for the service of God. Our Lord speaks of 
Himself ' as the Son, whom the Father sanctified 
and sent into the world/ And when He says, ' I 
sanctify myself,' He adds at once the purpose : it is 
in the service of the Father and His redeemed ones, 
— 'that they themselves may be sanctified in truth/ 
And can it be thought possible, now that God in 
Christ the Holy One, and in the Holy Spirit, is 
accomplishing His purposes, and gathering a people 
of saints, ' holy ones/ c made holy in Christ/ that now 
holiness and service would be put asunder ? Im- 
possible ! Here first we shall fully realize how 
essential they are to each other. Let us try and 
grasp their mutual relation. We are only made 



HOLINESS AND SERVICE. 237 

holy that we may serve. We can only serve as we 
are holy. Holiness is essential to effectual service. 
In the Old Testament we see degrees of holiness, 
not only in the holy places, but as much in the holy 
persons. In the nation, the Levites, the priests, 
and then the High Priest, advance from step to 
step : as in each succeeding stage the circle narrows, 
and the service is more direct and entire, so the 
holiness required is higher and more distinct. It is 
even so in this more spiritual dispensation : the 
more of holiness, the greater the fitness for service ; 
the more there is of true holiness, the more there is 
of God, and the more true and deep is the entrance 
He has had into the soul. The hold He has on the 
soul to use it in His service is more complete. 

In the Church of Christ there is a vast amount 
of work done which yields very little fruit. Many 
throw themselves into work in whom there is but 
little true holiness, little of the Holy Spirit. They 
often work most diligently, and, as far as human 
influence is concerned, most successfully. And yet 
true spiritual results in the building up of a holy 
temple in the Lord are but few. The Lord cannot 
work in them, because He has not the mastery of 
their inner life. His personal indwelling and fellow- 
ship, the rest of His Holy Presence, His Holiness 
reigning and ruling in the heart and life, — to all these 
they are comparative strangers. It has been rightly 
said that work is the cure for spiritual poverty and 
disease ; to some believers who had been seeking 
holiness apart from service, the call to work has 



238 HOLY IN CHRIST. 

been an unspeakable blessing. But to many it has 
only been an additional blind to cover up the 
terrible want of heart-holiness and heart-fellowship 
w T ith the living God. They have thrown them- 
selves into work more earnestly than ever, and 
yet have not in their heart the rest-giving and 
refreshing witness that their work is acceptable 
and accepted. 

My brother ! listen to the message, ■ If a man 
cleanse himself, he shall be a vessel unto honour, 
sanctified, meet for the Master's use, prepared unto 
every good work.' You cannot have the law of 
service more clearly or beautifully laid down. A 
vessel of honour, one whom the King will delight 
to honour, must be a vessel cleansed from all defile- 
ment of the flesh and the spirit. Then only can it 
be a sanctified vessel, possessed and indwelt by 
God's Holy Spirit. So it becomes meet for the 
Masters use : cleansed and made holy, it is fit for 
the Master. He can use it, and work in it, and 
will it. And so clean and holy, and yielded into 
the Master's hands, we are Divinely prepared for 
every good work. Holiness is essential to service. 
If service is to be acceptable to God, and effectual 
for its work on souls, and to be a joy and a strength 
to ourselves, we must be holy. The will of God 
must first live in us, if it is to be done by us. 

How many weary workers there are, mourning 
the want of power ; longing and praying for it, and 
yet not obtaining it ! They have spent their strength 
more iii the outer court of work and service* tb&a 



HOLINESS AND SERVICE. 239 

in the inner life of fellowship and faith. They 
truly have never understood that only as the Master 
gets possession of them, as the Holy Spirit has them 
at His disposal, can He use them, can they have 
true power. They often long and cry for what 
they call a baptism of power. They forget that the 
way to have God's power in us is for ourselves to 
be in His power. Put yourself into the power of 
God ; let His holy will live in you ; live in it and in 
obedience to it, as one who has no power to dispose 
of himself ; let the Holy Spirit dwell within, as in 
His Holy Temple, revealing the Holy One on the 
throne, ruling all ; He will without fail use you as a 
vessel of honour, sanctified and meet for the Master's 
use. Holiness is essential to effectual service. And 
sewice is no less essential to true holiness. We have 
repeated it so oft^n : Holiness is an energy, an 
intense energy of desire and self-sacrifice to make 
others partakers of its own purity and perfection. 
Christ sacrificed Himself — wherein did it consist, 
what was its aim ? — that we might be holy. A 
holiness that is selfish is a delusion. True holiness, 
God's holiness in us, works itself out in love, in seek- 
ing and loving the unholy, that they may become 
holy too. Self-sacrificing love is of the very essence 
of holiness. The Holy One of Israel is . its 
Eedeemer. The Holy One of God is the dying 
Saviour. The Holy Spirit of God makes holy. 
There is no holiness in God but what is most 
actively engaged in loving and saving and blessing. 
It must be so in us too. Let every thought of holi- 



240 HOLY IN CHRIST. 

ness, every act of faith or prayer, or effort in 
pursuit of it, be animated by the desire and the 
surrender to the Holiness of God for use in the 
attaining of its object. Let your whole life be one 
distinctly and definitely given up to God for His 
use and service. Your circumstances may appear 
to be unfavourable. God may appear to keep the 
door closed against your working for Him in the 
way you would wish ; your sense of unfitness 
may be painful. Still, let it be a matter settled 
between God and the soul, that your longing for 
holiness is that you may be fitter for Him to use, 
and that what He has given you of His Holiness 
in Christ and the Spirit is all at His disposal, wait- 
ing to be used. Be ready for Him to use ; live 
out, in a daily life of humble, self-denying, loving 
service of others, what grace you have received. 
You will find that in the union and interchange of 
worship and work, God's Holiness will rest upon 
you. 

' The Father sanctified the Son, and sent Him 
into the world/ The world is the place for the 
sanctified one, to be its light, its salt, its life. Man 
' sanctified in Christ Jesus/ and sent into the world 
too. Oh, let us not fear to accept our position — ■ 
our double position in the world, and in Christ ! 
In the world, with its sin and sorrow, with it 3 
thousands of needs touching us at every point, and 
its millions of souls all waiting for us. Aud 
in Christ too. For the sake of that world we ■ have 
been sanctified in Christ/ we are ■ holy in Christ/ 



HOLINESS AND SERVICE. 241 

we have < the spirit of sanctification ' dwelling in 
us. As a holy salt in a sinful world, let us give 
ourselves to our holy calling. Let us come nearer 
and nearer to God who has called us. Let us rest 
deeper and deeper in Christ our sanctification, in 
whom we are of God. Let us enter more firmly 
and more fully into that faith in Him in whom we 
are, by which our whole life will be covered and 
taken up in His. Let us beseech the Father to 
teach us that His Holy Spirit does dwell in us every 
moment, making, if we live by faith, Christ with 
His Holiness, our home, our abode, our sure defence, 
and our infinite supply. As He which hath called 
us is holy, let us be holy in His own Son, through 
His own Spirit, and the fire of His Holy Love will 
work through us its work of judging and condemning, 
of saving and sanctifying. A sanctified soul God 
will use to save. 

Be ye holy, as I am holy. 



Blessed Master ! I thank Thee for being anew 
reminded of the purpose of Thy Eedeeming Love. 
Thou gavest Thyself that Thou mightest cleanse 
for Thyself a people of Thine own, zealous in good 
works. Thou wouldest make of each of us a vessel of 
honour, cleansed and sanctified, meet for Thy use, 
and prepared for every good work. 

Blessed Lord ! write the lesson of Thy word deep 
in my heart. Teach me and all Thy people that if 
we would work for Thee, if we would have Thee 



242 HOLY IN CHRIST. 

work in us, and use us, we must be very holy, holy 
as God is holy. And that if we would be holy, we 
must be serving Thee. It is Thy own Spirit, by 
which Thou dost sanctify us to use us, and dost 
sanctify in using. To be entirely possessed of Thee 
is the path to sanctity and service both. 

Most Holy Saviour ! we are in Thee as our 
sanctification : in Thee we would abide. In the 
rest of a faith that trusts Thee for all, in the power 
of a surrender that would have no will but Thine, 
in a love that would lose itself to be wholly Thine, 
Blessed Jesus, we do abide in Thee. In Thee we 
are holy : in Thee we shall bear much fruit. 

Oh, be pleased to perfect Thine own work in us ! 
Amen. 



1. It is difficult to make it clear in words how growth in holiness will simply 
reveal itself as an increasing simplicity and self-forgetfulness, accompanied 
by the restful and most blessed assurance that God has complete possession 
of us and will use us. We pass from the stage in which work presses as an 
obligation ; it becomes the joy of fruit-bearing ; faith's assurance that He is 
working out His will through us. 

2. it has sometimes been said that people might be better employed in 
working for God than attending Holiness Conventions. This is surely a mis- 
understanding. It was before the throne of the Thrice Holy One, and as he 
heard the Seraphim sing of God's Holiness , that the prophet said, 'Here am I, 
send me.' As the missions of Moses and Isaiah, and the Son, whom the 
Father sanctified and sent, had their origin in the revelation of God's Holiness, 
our missions will receive new power as they are more directly born out of the 
worship of God as the Holy One, and baptized into the Spirit of Holiness. 

3. Let every worker take time to hear God's double call. If you would work, 
be very holy. If you would be holy, give yourself to God to use in His work. 

4. Note the connection between 'sanctified ' and ' meet for the Master's use. 
True holiness is being possessed of God ; true service being used of God. Hoia 
much service there is in which we are the chief agents, and ask God to help 
and to bless us. True service is being yielded up for the Master to use. 
Then the Holy Ghost is the Agent, and we are the instruments of His will. 
Such service is Holiness. 



THE WAY INTO THE HOLIEST. 24u 



Twenty-eighth Day. 



HOLY IN CHEIST. 

fflbt Mm into \%t holiest. 

« Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the 
Holiest by the blood of Jesus, by the way which He dedicated, 
a new and living way, through the veil, that is to say, His flesh : 
and having a great Priest over the house of God ; let us draw 
near with a true heart, in fulness of faith.' — Heb. x. 19-22. 

TXTHEN the High Priest once a year entered 
" into the second tabernacle within the veil, 
it was, we are told in the Epistle to the Hebrews, 
' the Holy Ghost signifying that the way into the 
Holiest of all was not yet made manifest.' When 
Christ died, the veil was rent ; all who were 
serving in the holy place had free access at once 
into the Most Holy ; the way into the Holiest of 
all was opened up. When the Epistle passes over 
to its practical application (x. 19), all its teaching 
is summed up in the words : ' Having therefore, 
brethren, boldness to enter into the Holiest of all, 
let us draw near/ Christ's redemption has opened 
the way to the Holiest of all : our acceptance of it 
must lead to nothing less than our drawing neai 



244 HOLY IN CHRIST. 

and entering in. The words of our text suggest 
to us four very precious thoughts in regard to the 
place of access, the right of access, the way of 
access, the power of access. 

The place of access. Whither are we invited to 
draw nigh ? The priests in Israel might enter the 
holy place, but were always kept excluded from the 
Holiest of all, God's immediate presence. The rent 
veil proclaimed liberty of access into that presence. 
It is there that believers as a royal priesthood are 
now to live and walk. Within the veil, in the very 
Holiest of all, in the same place, the heavenlies in 
which God dwells, in God's very presence, is to be 
our abode — our home. Some speak as if the 
i Let us draw near ' meant prayer, and that in our 
special approach to God in acts of worship we 
enter the Holiest of all. No ; great as this privilege 
is, God has meant something for us infinitely 
greater. We are to draw near, and dwell always, 
to live our life and do our work within the sphere, 
the atmosphere of the inner sanctuary. It is 
God's presence makes holy ground ; God's im- 
mediate presence in Christ makes any place the 
Holiest of all : and this is it into which we are to 
draw nigh, and in which we are to abide. There 
is not a single moment of the day, there is not 
a circumstance or surrounding, in which the be- 
liever may not be kept dwelling in the secret place 
of the Most High. As by faith he enters into the 
completeness of his reconciliation with God, and 
the reality of his oneness with Christ, as be thus 



THE WAY INTO THE HOLIEST. 245 

abiding in Christ, yields to the Holy Spirit to 
reveal within the presence of the Holy One, the 
Holiest of all is around him, he is indeed in it. 
With an uninterrupted access he draws even 
nearer. 

So near, so very near to God, 

I cannot nearer be ; 
For in the person of His Son, 

I am as near as He. 

The right of access. The thought comes up, and 
the question is asked : Is this not simply an ideal ? 
can it be a reality, an experience in daily life to 
those who know how sinful their nature is ? 
Blessed be God ! it is meant to be. It is possible, 
because our right of access rests not in what we 
are, but in the blood of Jesus. ' Having boldness 
to enter into the holy place by the blood of Jesus, 
let us draw near/ In the Passover we saw how 
redemption and the holiness aimed at were de- 
pendent on the blood. In the sanctuary, God's 
dwelling, we know how in each part, the court, 
the holy place, the Most Holy, the sprinkling of 
blood was what alone secured access to God. And 
now that the blood of Jesus has been shed — oh ! in 
what Divine power, what intense reality, what 
everlasting efficacy, we now have access into the 
Holiest of all, the Most Holy of God's heart and 
His love ! We are indeed brought nigh by the 
blood. We have boldness to enter by the blood. 
' The worshippers, being once cleansed, have no 
more conscience of sins.' Walking in the light, 



246 HOLY IN CHRIST. 

the blood of Jesus cleanses in the power of an 
endless life, with a cleansing that never ceases. 
No consciousness of unworthiness or remaining 
sinfulness need hinder the boldness of access : the 
liberty to draw near rests in the never-failing, ever- 
acting, ever-living efficacy of the Precious Blood. It 
is possible for a believer to dwell in the Holiest of all. 
The way of access. It is often thought that 
what is said of the new and living way dedicated 
for us by Jesus means nothing different from the 
boldness through His blood. This is not the case. 
The words mean a great deal more. • Having 
boldness by the blood of Jesus, let us draw near 
by the way which He dedicated for us.' That is, 
He opened for us a way to walk in as He walked 
in it, ' a new and living way, through the veil, that 
is to say, His flesh/ The way in which Christ 
walked when He gave His blood, is the very same 
in which we must walk too. That way led to the 
rending of the veil of the flesh, and so through the 
rent veil of the flesh, in to God. And was the 
veil of Christ's holy flesh rent that the veil of our 
sinful flesh might be spared ? Verily, no. He 
meant us to walk in the very same way in which 
He did, following closely after Himself. He dedi- 
cated for us a new and living way through the 
veil, that is, His flesh. As we go in through the 
rent veil of His flesh, we find in it at once the 
need and the power for our flesh being rent too: 
following Jesus ever means conformity to Jesus. 
It is Jesus with the rent flesh, in whom we are, 



THE WAY INTO THE HOLIEST. 247 

in whom we walk. 1 There is no way to God but 
through the rending of the flesh. In acceptance of 
Christ's life and death by faith as the power that 
works in us, in the power of the Spirit which 
makes us truly one with Christ, we all follow 
Christ as He passes on through the rent veil, that is, 
His flesh, and become partakers with Him of His 
crucifixion and death. The way of the cross, ' by 
which I have been crucified/ is the way through 
the rent veiL Man's destiny, fellowship with God 
in the power of the Holy Spirit, is only reached 
through the sacrifice of the flesh. 

And here we find now the solution of a great 
mystery — why so many Christians remain stand- 
ing after all, and never enter this Holiest of all; 
why the holiness of God's presence is so little seen 
on them. They thought that it was only in 
Christ that the flesh needed to be rent, not in 
themselves. They thought that the liberty they 
had in the blood was the new and living way. 
They knew not that the way into true and full 
holiness, into the Holiest of all, that the full 
entrance into the fellowship of the holiness of the 
Great High Priest, was only to be reached through 
the rent veil of the flesh, through conformity to 
the death of Jesus. This is in very deed the way 

1 *. Christ suffered, that He might bring us to God, being put to 
death in the flesh, but quickened in the Spirit.' ' Forasmuch 
then as Christ suffered in the flesh, arm ye yourselves also with 
the same mind.' The flesh and the Spirit are antagonists : as tha 
flesh dies, the Spirit lives. 



248 HOLY IN CHRIST. 

He dedicated for us. He is Himself the way; 
into His self-denial, His self-sacrifice, His cruci- 
fixion. He takes up all who long to be holy with 
His Holiness, holy as He is holy. 

The power of access. Does any one shrink back 
from entering the very Holiest for fear of this 
rending of the flesh, because he doubts whether he 
could bear it ? Let him listen once more. Hear 
what follows: 'And having a Great Priest over 
the House of God, let us draw near.' We have not 
only the Holiest of all inviting us, and the blood 
giving us boldness, and the way through the rent 
veil consecrated for us, but the Great Priest over 
the House of God, the Blessed Living Saviour, to 
draw, to help, and to welcome us. He is our 
Aaron. On His heart we see our name, because 
He only lives to think of us, and pray for us. 
On His forehead we see God's name, 'Holy to 
the Lord,' because in His Holiness the sins of our 
holy things are covered. In Him we are accepted 
and sanctified ; God receives us as holy ones. In 
the power of His love and His Spirit, in the power 
of Him the Holy One, in the joy of drawing nearer 
to Him and being drawn by Him, we gladly accept 
the way He has dedicated, and walk in His holy 
footsteps of self-denial and self-sacrifice. We see 
how the flesh is the thick veil that separates from 
the Holy One who is a Spirit, and it becomes an 
unceasing and most fervent prayer, that the cruci- 
fixion of the flesh may, in the power of the Holy 
Spirit, be in us a blessed reality. With the glory 



THE WAY INTO THE HOLIEST. 249 

of the Holiest of all shining out on us through the 
opened veil, and the Precious Blood speaking so 
loudly of boldness of access, and the Great Priest 
beckoning us with His loving Presence to draw 
near and be blessed, — with all this, we dare no 
longer fear, but choose the way of the rent veil as 
the path we love to tread, and give ourselves to 
enter in and dwell within the veil, in the very 
Holiest of all. 

And so our life here will be the earnest of the 
glory that is to come, as it is written — note here 
we have the four great thoughts of our text over 
again — ' These are they which came out of great 
tribulation/ that is by the way of the rent flesh ; 
1 and they washed their robes, and made them 
white in the blood of the Lamb/ their boldness 
was through the blood ; ' therefore are they before 
the throne of God/ their dwelling in the Holiest 
of all ; ' the Lamb, which is in the midst of the 
throne, shall be their Shepherd/ the Great Piiest 
still the Shepherd, Jesus Himself their all in all. 

Brother ! do you see what holiness is, and how 
it is to be found ? It is not something wrought in 
yourself. It is not something put on you from 
without. Holiness is the Presence of God resting 
on you. Holiness comes as you consciously abide 
in that Presence, doing all your work, and living 
all your life as a sacrifice to Him, acceptable 
through Jesus Christ, sanctified by the Holy 
Ghost. Oh, be no longer fearful, as if this life 
were not for you ! * Look to Jesus"; having' a Great 



250 HOLY IN CHRIST. 

Priest over the House of God, let us- draw near. 
Be occupied with Jesus. Our Brother has charge 
of the Temple ; He has liberty to show us all, to 
lead us into the secret of the Father's presence. 
The entire management of the Temple has been 
given into His hands with this very purpose, that 
all the feeble and doubting ones might come with 
confidence. Only trust yourself to Jesus, to His 
leading and keeping. Only trust Jesus, God's Holy 
One, your Holy One ; it is His delight to reveal to 
you what He has purchased with His blood. Trust 
Him to teach you the ordinances of the sanctuary. 
' That thou mayest know how thou oughtest to 
behave thyself in the House of God,' He has been 
given. Having a Great Priest, let us enter in, let 
us dwell in the Holiest of all. In the power of 
the blood, in the power of the new and living way, 
in the power of the Living Jesus, let the Holiest of 
all, the Presence of God, be the home of our soul. 
You are ' Holy in Christ ; ' in Christ you are in 
God's Holy Presence and Love ; just stay there. 

Be holy, for I am holy. 

Most Holy God ! how shall I praise Thee for the 
liberty to enter into the Holiest of all, and dwell 
there ? And for the precious Blood that brings us 
nigh ? And for the new and living way through 
the rent veil of the flesh that had separated us 
from Thee, in which my flesh now too has been 
crucified ? And for the Great Priest over the 



THE WAY INTO THE HOLIEST. 251 

House of God, our Living Lord Jesus, with Whom 
and in Whom we appear before Thee ? Glory be to 
Thy Holy Name for this wonderful and most com- 
plete redemption. 

I beseech Thee, O my God ! give me and all Thy 
children some right sense of how really and surely 
ve may live each day, may spend our whole life, 
within the veil, in Thine own Immediate Presence. 
Give us the spirit of revelation, I pray Thee, that 
we may see how, through the rent veil, the glory of 
Thy Presence streamest forth from the Most Holy 
into the holy place ; how, in the pouring out of the 
Holy Spirit, the kingdom of heaven came to earth, 
and all who yield themselves to that Spirit may 
know that in Christ they are indeed so near, so 
very near to Thee. Blessed Father ! let Thy 
Spirit teach us that this indeed is the holy life : a 
life in Christ the Holy One, always in the Sight 
and the Presence of Thy Holy Majesty. 

Most Holy God ! I draw nigh. I enter in. I 
am now in the Holiest of all. And here I would 
abide in Jesus, my Great Priest — here, in the 
Holiest of all. Amen, 



/. To abide in Christ is to dwell In the Holiest of all. Christ is not only the 
Sacrifice, and the Way, and the Great Priest, but also Himself the Temple. 
'The Lamb is the Temple.' As the Holy Spirit reveals my union to Christ 
more clearly, and heart and will lose themselves in Him, I dwell in the Holy 
Presence, which is the Holiest of all. You are 'holy in Christ'— draw near, 
enter in with boldness, and take possession— have no home but in the Holiest 
of all. 

2. 'Christ loved the Church, and gave Himself for it, that He might sanctify 
it.' He gave Himself ! Have you caught the force of that word ? Because 
He would have no one else do it, because none could do it; to sanctify His 
Church, He gave Himself to do it And so it is His own special belousd 



252 HOLY IN CHRIST. 



work to sanctify the Church He loved. Just accept Himself to do ft. He can 
and will make you holy, that He may present you to Himself glorious, without 
spot or wrinkle. Let that word Himself Hue in you. The whole life and 
walk in the House of God is in His charge. Having a Great Priest, let us 
draw near. 

3. This entrance into the Holiest of all— an ever fresh and ever deeper 
entrance — is, at the same time, an ever blessed resting in the Father's 
Presence. Faith in the blood, following in the way of the rent flesh, and 
fellowship with the Living Jesus, are the three chief steps. 

4. Enter into the Holiest of all, and dwell there. It will enter into thee, 
and transform thee, and dwell in thee. And thy heart will be the Holiest of 
all, in which He dwells. 

5. Have we not at times been lifted, by an effort of thought and will, or in 
the fellowship of the saints, into the Holiest of all, and speedily felt that the 
flesh had entered there too ? It was because we entered not by the new 
way of life— the way through death to life— the way of the rent veil of the 
fiesh. our crucified Lord I teach us what this means; give it U8j be it 
Thyself to us. 



HOLINESS AND CHASTISEMENT. 253 



Twenty-ninth Day. 



HOLY IN CHEIST. 

holiness anti Chastisement* 

1 He chasteneth us for our profit, that we may be partakers ol 
His holiness. Follow after sanctification, without which no 
man shall see the Lord.' — Heb. xii. 10, 14. 

THESE is perhaps no part of God's word which 
sheds such Divine light upon suffering as the 
Epistle to the Hebrews. It does this because it 
teaches us what suffering was to the Son of God. 
It perfected His humanity. It so fitted Him for 
His work as the Compassionate High Priest, It 
proved that He, who had fulfilled God's will in 
suffering obedience, was indeed worthy to be its 
executor in glory, and to sit down on the right 
hand of the Majesty on high. ' It became God, 
in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the 
Author of their salvation perfect through sufferings' 
1 Though He was a Son, yet learned He obedience by 
the things which He suffered, and having been 
made perfect, became the Author of eternal salva- 
tion to all them that obey Him/ As He said 



254 HOLY IN CHRIST. 

Himself of His suffering, ' I sanctify myself/ so we 
see here that His sufferings were indeed to Him 
the pathway to perfection and holiness. 

What Christ was and won was all for us. The 
power which suffering was proved to have in Him 
to work out perfection, the power which He im- 
parted to it in sanctifying Himself through suffer- 
ing, is the power of the new life that comes from 
Him to us. In the light of His example we can 
see, in the faith of His power we too can prove, 
that suffering is to God's child the likeness of the 
Father's love, and the channel of His richest bless- 
ing. To such faith the apparent mystery of suffer- 
ing is seen to be nothing but a Divine need— the 
light affliction that works out — yea, works out and 
actually effects the exceeding weight of glory. We 
agree not only to what is written, ' It became Him 
to make the Author of salvation perfect through 
suffering,' but understand somewhat how Divinely 
becoming and meet it is that we too should be 
sanctified by suffering. 

' He chasteneth us for our profit, that we should 
be made partakers of His holiness.' Of all the 
precious words Holy Scripture has for the sorrowful, 
there is hardly one that leads us more directly and 
more deeply into the fulness of blessing that suffer- 
ing is meant to bring. It is His Holiness. God's 
own Holiness we are to be made partakers of, 
The Epistle had spoken very clearly of our sancti-. 
fication from its Divine side as wrought out for us 
and to be wrought in us by Jesus Himself, ' H§ 



HOLINESS AND CHASTISEMENT. 255 

which sanctifieth and they which are sanctified are 
all of one.' ' We have been sanctified by the one 
offering of Christ/ In our text we have the other 
side, the progressive work by which we are person- 
ally to accept and voluntarily to appropriate this 
Divine Holiness. In view of all there is in us that 
is at variance with God's will, and that must be 
discovered and broken down, before we understand 
what it is to give up our will and delight in God's ; 
in view of the personal fellowship of suffering 
which alone can lead to the full appreciation of 
what Jesus bore and did for us ; in view, too, of the 
full personal entrance into and satisfaction with 
the love of God as our sufficient portion — chastise- 
ment and suffering are indispensable elements in 
God's work of making holy. In these three aspects 
we shall see how what the Son needed is what 
we need, how w T hat was of such unspeakable 
value to the Son will to us be no less rich in 
blessing. 

Chastisement leads to the acceptance of God's will. 
We have seen how God's will is our sanctification ; 
how it is in the will of God Christ has sanctified 
us ; yea more, how He found the power to sanctify 
us in sanctifying Himself in the entire surrender of 
His will to God. His ' I delight to do Thy will ' 
derived its worth from His continual ' Not my 
will.' And wherever God comes with chastisement 
or suffering, the very first object He has in view 
is, to ask and to work in us union with His own 
blessed will, that through it we may have union 



256 HOLY IN CHRIST. 

with Himself and His love. He comes in some 
one single point in which His will crosses our most 
cherished affection or desire, and asks the surrender 
of what we will to what He wills. When this is 
done willingly and lovingly, He leads the soul on 
to see how the claim for the sacrifice in the in- 
dividual matter is the assertion of a principle — 
that in everything His will is to be our one desire. 
Happy the soul to whom affliction is not a series 
of single acts of conflict and submission to single 
acts of His will, but an entrance into the school 
where we prove and approve all the good and 
perfect and acceptable will of God. 

It has sometimes appeared even to God's chil- 
dren as if affliction were not a blessing : it so rouses 
the evil nature, and calls forth all the opposition of 
the heart against God's will, that it has brought 
the loss of the peace and the piety that once 
appeared to reign. Even in such cases it is 
working out God's purpose. ' That He might 
humble thee, to prove thee, to know what was 
in thine heart/ is still His object in leading into 
the wilderness. To an extent we are not aware of, 
our religion is often selfish and superficial : when 
we accept the teaching of chastisement in discover- 
ing the self-will and love of the world which still 
prevails, we have learnt one of its first and most 
needful lessons. 

This lesson has special difficulty when the trial 
does not come direct from God, but through men 
or circumstances. In looking at second causes, 



HOLINESS AND CHASTISEMENT. 257 

and in seeking for their removal, in the feeling 
of indignation or of grief, we often entirely for- 
get to see God's will in everything His Providence 
allows. As long as we do so, the chastisement is 
fruitless ; and perhaps only hardens the more. If 
in our study of the pathway of Holiness there has 
been awakened in us the desire to accept and adore, 
and stand complete in all the will of God, let 
us in the very first place seek to recognise that will 
in everything that comes on us. The sin of him 
who vexes us is not God's will. But it is God's 
will that we should be in that position of difficulty 
to be tried and tested. Let our first thought be : 
this position of difficulty is my Father's will for 
me : I accept that will as my place now where He 
sees it fit to try me. Such acceptance of the trial 
is the way to turn it into blessing. It will lead 
on to an ever clearer abiding in all the will of God 
all the day. 

Chastisement leads to the fellowship of God's Son^ 
The will of God out of Christ is a law we cannot 
fulfil. The will of God in Christ is a life that fills 
us. He came in the name of our fallen humanity, 
and accepted all God's will as it rested on us, both 
in the demands of the law and in the consequences 
which sin had brought upon man. He gave Him- 
self entirely to God's will, whatever it cost Him. 
And so He paved for us a way through suffer- 
ing, not only through it in the sense of past it and 
out of it, but by means and in virtue of it, into the 
love and glory of the Father. And it is in the 



258 HOLY IN CHRIST. 

power which Christ gives in fellowship with Him- 
self that we too can love the way of the Cross, as 
the best and most blessed way to the Crown. 
Scripture says that the will of God is our sancti- 
fication, and also that Christ is our Sanctification. 
It is only in Christ that we have the power to 
love and rejoice in the will of God. In Him we 
have the power. He became our Sanctification 
once for all by delighting to do that will ; He 
becomes our Sanctification in personal experience, 
by teaching us to delight to do it. He learned 
to do it ; He could not become perfect in doing 
it otherwise than by suffering. In suffering He 
draws nigh ; He makes our suffering the fellowship 
of His suffering ; and in it makes Himself, who was 
perfected through suffering, our Sanctification. 

ye suffering ones ! all ye whom the Father is 
chastening ! come and see Jesus suffering, giving up 
His will, being made perfect, sanctifying Himself. 
His suffering is the secret of His Holiness, of His 
Glory, of His Life. Will you not thank God for 
anything that can admit you into the nearer fellow- 
ship of your blessed Lord ? Shall we not accept 
every trial, great or small, on the call of His love 
to be one with Himself in living only for God's 
will. This is Holiness, to be one with Jesus as He 
does the will of God, to abide in Jesus who was 
made perfect through suffering. 

Chastisement leads to the enjoyment of God's love. 
Many a father has been surprised as he made his 
first experience of how a child, after being punished 



HOLINESS AND CHASTISEMENT. 259 

in love, began to cling to him more tenderly than 
before. So while, to those who live at a distance 
from their Father, the misery in this world appears 
to be the one thing that shakes their faith in God's 
Love, it is just through suffering that His children 
learn to know the Eeality of that Love. The 
chastening is so distinctly a father's prerogative ; 
it leads so directly to the confession of its needful- 
ness and its lovingness ; it wakens so powerfully 
the longing for pardon and comfort and deliver- 
ance, that it does indeed become, strange though 
this may seem, one of the surest guides into the 
deeper experience of the Divine Love. Chastening 
is the school in which the blessed lesson is learnt 
that the will of God is all Love, and that Holiness 
is the fire of Love, consuming that it may purify, 
destroying the dross only that it may assimilate 
into its own perfect purity all that yields itself to 
the wondrous change. 

' We know and have believed the love which God 
hath in us. God is love : and he that abideth in love 
abideth in God, and God in Him/ Man's destiny is 
fellowship with God, the fellowship, the mutual in- 
dwelling of love. It is only by faith that this Love 
of God can be known. And faith can only grow by 
exercise, can only thrive in trial : when visible things 
fail, its energy is roused to yield itself to be possessed 
by the Invisible, by the Divine. Chastisement is 
the nurse of faith ; one of its chosen attendants, to 
lead deeper into the Love of God. This is the new 
and living way, the way of the rent flesh in fellow- 



260 HOLT IN CHRIST. 

ship with Jesus leading up into the Holiest of all. 
There it is seen how the Justice that will not spare 
the child, and the Love that sustains and sanctifies 
it, are both one in the Holiness of God. 

ye chastened saints! who are so specially being 
led in the way that goes through the rent veil of 
the flesh, you have boldness to enter in. Draw 
near ; come and dwell in the Holiest of all. Make 
your abode in the Holiest of all : there you are 
made partakers of His Holiness. Chastisement is 
bringing your heart into unity with God's Will, 
God's Son, God's Love. Abide in God's Will. Abide 
in God's Son. Abide in God's Love. Dwell within 
the veil, in the Holiest of all. 

Be ye holy, as I am holy. 



Most Holy God ! once again I bless Thee for the 
wondrous revelation of Thy Holiness. Not only 
have I heard Thee speak, ' I am holy/ but Thou hast 
invited me to fellowship with Thyself : ' Be holy, as 
I am holy.' Blessed be Thy name ! I have heard 
more even : ' I make holy ' is Thy word of promise, 
pledging Thine own Power to work out the purpose 
of Thy Love. I do thank Thee for what Thou hast 
revealed in Thy Son, in Thy Spirit, in Thy Word, 
of the path of Holiness. But how shall I bless 
Thee for the lesson of this day, that there is 
not a loss or sorrow, not a pain or care, not a 
temptation or trial, but Thy love also means it, and 
makes it to be a help in working out the holiness 



HOLINESS AND CHASTISEMENT. 261 

of Thy people. Through each Thou drawest to 
Thyself, that they may taste how, in accepting Thy 
Will of Love, there is blessing and deliverance. 

Blessed Father ! Thou knowest how often I 
have looked upon the circumstances and the diffi- 
culties of this life as hindrances. Oh, let them 
all, in the light of Thy holy purpose to make us 
partakers of Thy Holiness, in the light of Thy Will 
and Thy Love, from this hour be helps. Let, above 
all, the path of Thy Blessed Son, proving how suffer- 
ing is the discipline of a Fathers love, and surrender 
the secret of holiness, and sacrifice the entrance to the 
Holiest of all, be so revealed that in the power of His 
Spirit and His grace that path may become mine. 
Let even chastening, even the least, be from Thine own 
hand, making me partaker of Thy Holiness. Amen. 



1. How wonderful the revelation in the Epistle to the Hebrews of the 
holiness and the holy making power of suffering, as seen in the Son of God ! 
'He learned obedience by the things which He suffered.' 'It became God 
to make the Author of our salvation perfect through suffering, for both He 
that sanctifieth and they mho are sanctified are all of one.' 'In that He Him- 
self hath suffered, He is able to succour.' 'We behold Jesus, because of 
the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour.' Suffering is the 
way of the rent veil, the new and living way Jesus walked in and opened 
for us. Let all sufferers study this. Let all who are 'holy in Christ' here 
learn to know the Christ in whom they are holy, and the way in which 
He sanctified Himself and sanctifies us. 

2. If we begin by realizing the sympathy of Jesus with us in our suffer- 
ing, it will lead us on to what is more : sympathy with Jesus in His suffering 
and possibly fellowship with Him to suffer even as He did. 

3. Let suffering and holiness be inseparably linked, as in God's mind and in 
Christ's person, so in your life through the Spirit. 'It became God to make 
Him perfect through suffering ; for both He that sanctifieth and they who are 
sanctified are all of one.' Let every trial, small or great, be the touch of 
God's hand, laying hold on you, to lead you to holiness. Give yourself into 
that hand. 

4. 'Insomuch as ye are partakers of Christ's sufferings, rejoice / for the 
Spirit of glory and of God resteth on you. ' 



262 HOLY IN CHRIST. 



Thirtieth Day. 



HOLY IN CHEIST. 

GTfje SEnctton from tlje Holg ©ne* 

' And ye have an anointing from the Holy One, and ye know 
all things. And as for you, the anointing which ye received of 
Him abideth in you, and ye need not that any one teach you ; 
but as His anointing teacheth you concerning all things, and is 
true, and is no lie, and even as it taught you, ye abide in Him.' 
—1 John ii. 20, 27. 

IN the revelation by Moses of God's Holiness and 
His way of making holy, the priests, and 
specially the high priests, were the chief expression 
of God's Holiness in man. In the priests them- 
selves, the holy anointing oil was the one great 
expression of the grace that made holy. Moses 
was to make an holy anointing oil : ' And thou shalt 
take of the anointing oil, and sprinkle it upon 
Aaron and upon his sons, and he shall be hallowed, 
and his sons with him.' ' This shall be an holy 
anointing oil unto me. Upon man's flesh shall it 
not be poured ; neither shall ye make any other 
like it ; it is holy, it shall be holy unto you ' (Exod. 
xxix. 21, xxx. 25-32). With this the priests, and 



THE UNCTION FROM THE HOLY ONE. 263 

specially the high priests, were to be anointed and 
consecrated : ' He that is the high priest among you, 
upon whose head the anointing oil was poured, 
shall not go out of the holy place, nor profane the 
holy place of his God ; for the crown of the anoint- 
ing oil of his God is upon him' (Lev. xxi. 10, 12). 
And even so it is said of David, as type of the 
Messiah, ' Our king is of the Holy One of Israel. I 
have found David, my servant ; with my holy oil 
have I anointed him/ 

We know how the Hebrew names Messiah and 
the Greek Christ have reference to this. So in the 
passage just quoted the Hebrew is, ' with my holy 
oil I have messiahed him/ And so in a passage 
like Acts x. 38: 'Concerning Jesus of Nazareth, 
whom God christed with the Holy Ghost and with 
power/ Or Ps, xlv. : ' God hath messiahed thee with 
the oil of gladness above thy fellows/ And so, as 
one of our Eeformed Catechisms, the Heidelberg, 
has it, in answer to the question, Why art thou 
called a Christian? We are called Christians, because 
we are fellow-partakers with Him of His christing, 
His anointing. This is the anointing of which 
John speaks, the chrisma or christing of the Holy 
One. The Holy Spirit is the holy anointing which 
every believer receives : what God did to His Son 
to make Him the Christ, He does to me to make 
me a Christian. 'Ye have the anointing of the 
Holy One/ 

1. Ye have received the anointing from the Holy 
One. It is as the Holy One that the Father gives 



264 HOLY IN CHRIST. 

the anointing: that wherewith He anoints is called 
the oil of holiness, the Holy Spirit. Holiness is 
indeed a Divine ointment. Just as there is nothing 
so subtle and penetrating as the odour with which 
the ointment fills a house, so holiness is an inde- 
scribable, all-pervading breath of heavenliness which 
pervades the man on whom the anointing rests. 
Holiness does not consist in certain actions : this 
is righteousness. Holiness is the unseen and yet 
manifest presence of the Holy One resting on His 
anointed. Direct from the Holy One, the anoint- 
ing is alone received, or rather, only in the abiding 
fellowship with Him in Christ, who is the Holy One 
of God. 

And who receives it ? Only he who has given him- 
self entirely to be holy as God is holy. It was the 
priest who was separated to be holy to the Lord 
who received the anointing : upon mans flesh it 
shall not be poured. How many would fain have 
the precious ointment for the sake of its perfume to 
themselves ! No, only he who is wholly consecrated 
to the service of the Holy One, to the work of the 
sanctuary, may receive it. If any one had said, I 
would fain have the anointing, but not be made a 
priest, I am not ready to go and always be at the 
call of sinners seeking their God, he could have no 
share in it. Holiness is the energy that only lives 
to make holy, and to bless in so doing : the anoint- 
ing of the Holy One is for the priest, the servant 
oi God Most High. It is only in the intensity of a 
soul truly roused and given up to God's glory, God's 



THE UNCTION FROM THE HOLY ONE. 265 

kingdom, God's work, that holiness becomes a reality. 
The holy garments were only prepared for priests 
and their service. In all our seekings after holi- 
ness, let us remember this. As we beware of the 
error of thinking that work for Christ will make 
holy, let us also watch against the other, the strain- 
ing after holiness without work. It is the priest 
who is set apart for the service of the holy place 
and the Holy One ; it is the believer who is ready 
to live and die that the Holiness of God may 
triumph among men around him, who will receive 
the anointing. 

2. ( The anointing teacheth you' The new man is 
created in knowledge, as well as in righteousness and 
holiness. Christ is made to us wisdom, as well as 
righteousness and sanctification. God's service and 
our holiness are above all to be of a free and full, 
an intelligent and most willing approval of His 
blessed will. And so the anointing, to fit us for 
the service of the sanctuary, teaches us to know all 
things. Just as the perfume of the ointment is the 
most subtle essence, something that has never yet 
been found or felt, except as it is smelt, so the 
spiritual faculty which the anointing gives is the 
most subtle there can be. It makes ' quick of 
scent in the fear of the Lord : ' it teaches us by a 
Divine instinct, by which the anointed one recog- 
nises what has the heavenly fragrance in it, and 
what is of earth. It is the anointing that makes 
the Word and the name of Jesus in the Word to 
be indeed as ointment poured forth. 



266 HOLY IN CHEIST. 

The great mark of the anointing is their teach- 
ableness. It is the great mark of Christ, the Holy 
One of God, the Anointed One, that He listens : 
' I speak not of myself ; as I hear, so I speak/ 
And so it is of the Holy Spirit too : ' He shall not 
speak out of Himself : whatsoever He shall hear, 
that shall He speak/ It cannot be otherwise : one 
anointed with the anointing of this Christ, with this 
Holy Spirit, will be teachable, will listen to be 
taught. ' The anointing teacheth/ ' And ye need 
not that any one teach you : but the anointing 
teacheth you concerning all things/ 'They shall 
be all taught of God,' includes every believer. The 
secret of true holiness is a very direct and personal 
relation to the Holy One : all the teaching through 
the word or men made entirely dependent on and 
subordinate to the personal teaching of the Holy 
Ghost. 

3. ' And the anointing abideth in you. 9 ' In you' 
In the spiritual life it is of deep importance ever 
to maintain the harmony between the objective and 
the subjective : God in Christ above me, God in the 
Spirit within me. In us, not as in a locality, but in 
us, as one with us, entering into the most secret parti 
of our being, and pervading all, dwelling in our very 
body, the anointing abideth in us, forming part of 
our very selves. And this just in proportion as we 
know it and yield ourselves to it, as we wait and 
are still to let the secret fragrance permeate our 
whole being. And this, again, not interruptedly, 
but as a continuous and unvarying experience. 



THE UNCTION FROM THE HOLY ONE. 267 

Above circumstances and feelings 'the anointing 
abideth.' Not, indeed, as a fixed state or as some- 
thing in our own possession ; but, according to the 
law of the new life, in the dependence of faith on 
the Holy One, and in the fellowship of Jesus. ' I 
am anointed with fresh oil/ — this is tlie objective 
side ; every new morning the believer waits for the 
renewal of the Divine gift from the Father. ' The 
anointing abideth in you/ — this is the subjective 
side ; the holy life, the life of faith and fellowship, 
the anointing is always, from moment to moment, a 
spiritual reality. The holy anointing oil, always 
fresh, the anointing abiding always, is the secret of 
holiness. 

4. c And even as it taught you, ye abide in Him! 
Here we have again the Holy Trinity: the Holy 
One, from whom the holy anointing comes ; the 
Holy Spirit, who is Himself the anointing ; and 
Christ, the Holy One of God, in whom the anoint- 
ing teaches us to abide. In Christ the unseen 
holiness of God was set before us, and brought 
nigh : it became human, vested in a human nature, 
that it might be communicated to us. Within us 
dwells and works the Holy Spirit, drawing us out 
to the Christ of God, uniting us in heart and will 
to Him, revealing Him, forming Him within us, so 
that His likeness and mind are embodied in us. It 
is thus we abide in Christ : the holy anointing of 
the Holy One teacheth it to us. It is this that is 
the test of the true anointing : abiding in Christ, as 
He means it, becomes truth in us. Here is the life 



268 HOLY IN CHRIST. 

of holiness as the Thrice Holy gives it : the Father, 
the first, the Holy One, making holy ; the Son, the 
second, His Holy One, in whom we are ; the Spirit, 
the third, who dwells in us, and through whom we 
abide in Christ, and Christ in us. Thus it is that 
the Thrice Holy makes us holy. 

Let us study the Divine anointing. It comes 
from the Holy One. There is no other like it. It 
is God's way of making us holy — His holy priests. 
It is God's way of making us partakers of holiness 
in Christ. The anointing, received of Him day by 
day, abiding in us, teaching us all things, especially 
teaching us to abide in Christ, must be on us 
every day. Its subtle, all-pervading power must go 
through our whole life : the odour of the ointment 
must fill the house. Blessed be God, it can do so ! 
The anointing that abideth makes the abiding in 
Christ a reality and a certainty ; and God Himself, 
the Holy One, makes the abiding anointing a reality 
and a certainty too. To His Holy Name be the 
praise ! 

Be holy, for I am holy. 



Thou, who art the Holy One, I come to Thee 
now for the renewed anointing. Father ! this is 
the one gift Thy child may most surely count on 
— the gift of Thy Holy Spirit. Grant me now to 
sing, ' Thou anointest my head ; ' ' I am anointed 
with fresh oil.' 

1 desire to confess with deep shame that Thy 



THE UNCTION FROM THE HOLY ONE. 269 

Spirit has been sorely grieved and dishonoured. 
How often the fleshly mind has usurped His place 
in Thy worship ! How much the fleshly will has 
sought to do His work ! my Father ! let Thy 
light shine through me to convince me very 
deeply of this. Let Thy judgment come on all 
chat there is of human willing and running. 

Blessed Father ! grant me, according to the 
riches of Thy glory, even now to be strengthened 
with might by Thy Spirit in the inner man. 
Strengthen my faith to believe in Christ for a full 
share in His anointing. Oh, teach day by day to 
wait for and receive the anointing with fresh 
oil! 

my Father ! draw me and all Thy children to 
see that for the abiding in Christ we need the 
abiding anointing. Father ! we would walk humbly, 
in the dependence of faith, counting upon the inner 
and ever-abiding anointing. May we so be a sweet 
savour of Christ to all. Amen. 



1. I think I know now the reason why at times we fail in the abiding. We 
think and read, we listen and pray, we try to believe and strive to look to 
Jesus only, and yet we fail. What was wanting was this: 'His anointing 
teacheth you ; even as it taught you, ye abide in him ; ' so far, and no 
farther. 

2. The washing always precedes the anointing : we cannot have the anoint- 
ing if we fail in the cleansing. When cleansed and anointed we are fit for 
use. Oh that God would visit His Church, and teach His children what it is to 
wait for, and receive, and walk in the full anointing, the anointing that 
abideth and teacheth to abide I Oh that the truth of the personal leading of 
the Holy Spirit in every believer were restored in the Chvrch ! He is doing it ; 
He will do it. 

3. Would you have the abiding anointing? Yield yourself wholly to be 
sanctified and made meet for the Master's use : dwell in the Holiest of all, in 
God's presence: accept every chastisement as a fellowship in the way of the 
rent flesh : be sure the anointing will flow in union with Jesus, 'it is like the 



270 HOLY m CHRIST. 



precious ointment upon the head of Aaron, that went down to the skirts of his 
garments.' 

4. The anointing is the Divine eye-salve, opening the eyes of the heart to 
know Jesus. So it teaches to abide in Him. I am sure most Christians have 
no conception of the danger and deceitfulness of a thought religion, with 
sweet and precious thoughts coming to us in books and preaching, and little 
power. The teaching of the Holy Spirit is in the heart first ; man's teaching 
in the mind. Let all our thinking ever lead us to cease from thought, and to 
open the heart and will to the Spirit to teach there in His own Divine way, 
deeper than thought and feeling. Unseen, within the veil, the Holy Spirit 
abideth. Be silent and still, believe and expect, and cling to Jesus* 



HOLINESS AND HEAVEN. 271 



Thirty-first Day. 



HOLY IN CHEIST. 

holiness anli 3^eabnt* 

* Seeing that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner 
of men ought ye to be in all holy living and godliness?' — 
2 Pet. iii. 11. 

' Follow after the sanctiflcation without which no man shall 
see the Lord.' — Heb. xii. 14. 

1 He that is holy, let him be made holy still. . . . The grace 
of the Lord Jesus be with the holy ones. Amen.' — Rev. xxii. 
11, 21. 

MY brother, we are on our way to see God. 
We have been invited to meet the Holy One 
face to face. The infinite mystery of holiness, the 
glory of the Invisible God, before which the sera- 
phim veil their faces, is to be unveiled, to be 
revealed to us. And that not as a thing we are 
to look upon and to study. But we are to see the 
Tlirice Holy One, the Living God Himself. God, 
the Holy One, will show Himself to us : we are to 
see God. Oh, the infinite grace, the inconceivable 
blessedness ! we are to see God. 



272 HOLY IN CHKIST. 

We are to see God, the Holy One. And all our 
schooling here in the life of holiness is simply the 
preparation for that meeting and that vision. 
' Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see 
God/ 'Follow after the sanctification, without 
which no man shall see the Lord/ Since the time 
when God said to Israel, ' Be ye holy, as I am holy/ 
Holiness was revealed as the only meeting-place 
between God and His people. To be holy was to 
be the common ground on which they were to 
stand with Him ; the one attribute in which they 
were to be like God ; the one thing that was to 
prepare them for the glorious time when He 
would no longer need to keep them away, but 
would admit them to the full fellowship of 
His glory, to have the word fulfilled in them : 
' He that is holy, let him be made yet more 
holy/ 

In his second epistle, Peter reminds believers 
that the coming of the day of the Lord is to be 
preceded and accompanied by the most tremendous 
catastrophe — the dissolution of the heavens and the 
earth. He makes it a plea with them to give dili- 
gence that they may be found without spot and 
blameless in His sight. And he asks them to think 
and say, under the deep sense of what the coming 
of the day of God would be and would bring, what 
the life of those ought to be who look for such 
things : ' What manner of person ought ye to be in 
all holy living and godliness ? ' Holiness must be 
its one, its universal characteristic. At the close 



HOLINESS AND HEAVEN. 273 

of our meditations on God's call to Holiness, we 
may take Peter's question, and in the light of all 
that God has revealed of His Holiness, and all that 
waits still to be revealed, ask ourselves, 'What 
manner of men ought we to be in all holy living and 
godliness ? ' 

Note first the meaning of the question. In the 
original Greek, the words living and godliness are 
plural. Alford says, c In holy behavioztrs and pieties ; 
the plurals mark the holy behaviour and piety in 
all its forms and examples! Peter would plead for 
a life of holiness pervading the whole man : our 
behaviours towards men, and our pieties towards 
God. True holiness cannot be found in anything 
less. Holiness must be the one, the universal 
characteristic of our Christian life. In God we 
have seen that holiness is the central attribute, the 
comprehensive expression for Divine perfection, the 
attribute of all the attributes, the all-including 
epithet by which He Himself, as Eedeemer and 
Father, His Son and His Spirit, His Day, His 
House, His Law, His Servants, His People, His 
Name, are marked and known. Always and in 
everything, in Judgment as in Mercy, in His Exalta- 
tion and His Condescension, in His Hiddenness 
and His Eevelation, always and in everything, 
God is the Holy One. And the Word would teach 
us that the reign of Holiness, to be true and pleas- 
ing to God, must be supreme, must be in all holy 
living and godliness. There must not be a moment 
of the day, nor a relation in life ; there must be 

s 



274 HOLY IN CHRIST. 

nothing in the outer conduct, nor in the inmost 
recesses of the heart ; there must be nothing belong- 
ing to us, whether in worship or in business, that is 
not holy. The Holiness of Jesus, the Holiness 
which comes of the Spirit's anointing, must cover 
and pervade all. Nothing, nothing may be ex- 
cluded, if we are to be holy ; it must be as Peter 
said when he spoke of God's call — holy in all 
manner of living ; it must be as he says here — ■ 
' in all holy living and godliness.' To use the 
significant language of the Holy Spirit : Every- 
thing must be done, ' worthily of the holy ones/ 
1 as becometh holy ones ' (Rom. xvi. 3 ; Eph. 
v. 3). 

Note, too, the force of the question. Peter 
says, 'Wherefore, beloved, seeing that ye look for 
these things.' Yes, let us think what that means. 
We have been studying, down through the course 
of Eevelation, the wondrous grace and patience 
with which God has made known and made par- 
taker of His holiness, all in preparation for what 
is to come. We have heard God, the Holy One, 
calling us, pleading with us, commanding us to be 
holy, as He is holy. And we expect to meet Him, 
and to dwell through eternity in His Light, holy as 
He is holy. It is not a dream ; it is a living 
reality ; we are looking forward to it, as the only 
one thing that makes life worth living. We are look- 
ing forward to Love to welcome us, as with the 
confidence of childlike love we come as His holy 
G*aes to cry, Holy Father ! 



II L" ESS AND HEAVEN. 2T5 

We have learnt to know Jesus, the Holy One of 
God, our Sanctification. We are living in Him, 
day by day, as those who are holy in Christ Jesus. 
We are drawing on His Holiness without ceasing. 
We are walking in that will of God which He did, 
and which He enables us to do. And we are look- 
ing forward to meet Him with great joy, ' when He 
shall come to be glorified in the holy ones, and to be 
admired in all them that believe/ We have within 
us the Holy Spirit, the Holiness of God in Christ 
come down to be at home within us, as the earnest 
of our inheritance. He, the Spirit of Holiness, is 
secretly transforming us within, sanctifying our 
spirit, soul, and body, to be blameless at His coming, 
and making us meet for the inheritance of the holv 
ones in light. We are looking forward to the time 
when He shall have completed His work, when the 
body of Christ shall be perfected, and the bride, all 
filled and streaming with the life and glory of the 
Spirit within her, shall be set with Him on His 
throne, even as He sat with the Father on His throne. 
We hope through eternity to worship and adore the 
mystery of the Thrice Holy One. Even here it fills 
our souls with trembling joy and wonder : when 
God's work of making holy is complete, how we 
shall join in the song, ' Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God 
Almighty, which wast, and art, and art to come!' 

In preparation for all this the most wonderful 
events are to take place. The Lord Jesus Himself 
is to appear, the power of sin and the world is to 
be destroyed ; this visible system of things is to be 



276 HOLY IN CHRIST. 

broken up ; the power of the Spirit is to triumph 
through all creation ; there is to be a new heaven 
and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness. 
And holiness is then to be unfolded in ever- 
growing blessedness and glory in the fellowship of 
the Thrice Holy : ' He that is holy, let him be holy 
yet more/ Surely it but needs the question to be 
put for each believer to feel and acknowledge its 
force : ' Wherefore, beloved, seeing that ye look for 
these things, what manner of men ought ye to be 
in all holy living and godliness ? ' 

And note now the need and the point of the 
question. ' What manner of persons ought ye to 
be ? ' But is such a question needed ? Can it be 
that God's holy ones, made holy in Christ Jesus, 
with the very spirit of holiness dwelling with them, 
on the way to meet the Holy One in His Glory 
and Love, can it be that they need the question ? 
Alas ! alas ! it was so in the time of Peter ; it is 
but too much so in our days too. Alas ! how many 
Christians there are to whom the very word Holy, 
though it be the name by which the Father, in His 
New Testament, loves to call His children more 
than any other, is strange and unintelligible. And 
again, alas ! for how many Christians there are for 
whom, when the word is heard, it has but little 
attraction, because it has never yet been shown to 
them as a life that is indeed possible, and unutter-? 
ably blessed. And yet again, alas ! for how many 
are there not, even workers in the Master's service, 
to whom the ' all holy living and godliness ' is yefc 



HOLINESS AND HEAVEN. 277 

a secret and a burden, because they have not yet 
consented to give up all, both their will and their 
work, for the Holy One to take and fill with His 
Holy Spirit. And yet once more, alas ! as the cry 
comes, even from those who do know the power of 
a holy life, lamenting their unfaithfulness and un- 
belief, as they see how much richer their entrance 
into the Holy Life might have been, and how much 
fuller the blessing they still feel so feeble to com- 
municate to others. Oh, the question is needed ! 
Shall not each of us take it, and keep it, and 
answer it by the Holy Spirit through whom it came, 
and then pass it on to our brethren, that we 
and they may help each other in faith, and live in 
joy and hope to give the answer our God would 
have ? 

' Seeing that these things are, then, all to be dis- 
solved, what manner of persons ought we to be in 
all holy living and godliness ? ' Brethren ! the time 
is short. The world is passing away. The heathen 
are perishing. Christians are sleeping. Satan is 
active and mighty. God's holy ones are the hope 
of the Church and the world. It is they their Lord 
can use. ' What manner of persons shall we be in 
all holy living and godliness ! ' Shall we not seek 
to be such as the Father commands, ' Holy, as He is 
holy ' ? Shall we not yield ourselves afresh and 
undividedly to Him who is our Sanctification, and 
to His Blessed Spirit, to make us holy in all 
behaviours and pieties ? Oh ! shall we not, in 
thought of the love of our Lord Jesus, in thought 



278 HOLY IN CHRIST. 

of the coming glory, in view of the coming end, of 
the need of the Church and the world, give ourselves 
to be holy as He is holy, that we may have power 
to bless each believer we meet with the message of 
what God will do, and that in concert with them 
we may be a light and a blessing to this perishing 
world ? 

I close with the closing words of God's Blessed 
Book, i He which testifieth these things saith, Yea, 
I come quickly. Amen : Come, Lord Jesus. The 
grace of the Lord Jesus be with the holy ones. 
Amen/ 

Be ye holy, as I am holy. 



Most Holy God ! who hast called us to be holy, 
we have heard Thy voice asking, What manner of 
persons we ought to be in all holy living and godli- 
ness ? With our whole soul we answer in deep 
contrition and humility : Holy Father ! we ought 
to be so different from what we have been. In 
faith and love, in zeal and devotion, in Christlike 
humility and holiness, Father ! we have not 
been, before Thee and the world, what we ought to 
be, what we could be. Holy Father ! we now pray 
for all who unite with us in this prayer, and implore 
of Thee to grant a great revival of True Holiness in 
us and in all Thy Church. Visit, we beseech Thee, 
visit all ministers of Thy word, that in view- of Thy 
coming they may take up and sound abroad the 
question, What manner of persons ought ye tq be ? 



HOLINESS AND HEAVEN. 279 

Lay upon them, and all Thy people, such a burden 
under surrounding unholiness and worldliness, that 
they may not cease to cry to Thee. Grant them 
such a vision of the highway of holiness, the new 
and living way in Christ, that they may preach 
Christ our Sanctification in the power and the joy 
of the Holy Ghost, with the confident and triumph- 
ant voice of witnesses who rejoice in what Thou dost 
for them. God ! roll away the reproach of Thy 
people, that their profession does not make them 
humbler or holier, more loving, and more heavenly 
than others. 

Holy God ! give Thou Thyself the answer to 
Thy question, and teach us and the world what 
manner of persons Thy people can be, in the day 
of Thy power, in the beauty of holiness. We bow 
our knee to Thee, Father, that Thou wouldst 
grant us, according to the riches of Thy glory, to be 
mightily strengthened in the inner man by the Spirit 
of Holiness. Amen. 



1. What manner of men ought ye to be in alt the holy living ? This is a 
question God has written down for us. Might it not help us if we were to 
write down the answer, and say how holy we think we ought to be ? The 
clearer and more distinct our views are of what God wishes, of what He has 
made possible, of what in reality ought to be, the more definite our acts of 
confession, of surrender, and of faith can become. 

2. Let every believer, who longs to be holy, join in the daily prayer that 
God would visit His people with a great outpouring of the Spirit of Holiness. 
Pray without ceasing that every believer may live as a holy one. 

3. 'Seeing that ye look for these things.' Our life depends, in more than 
one sense, upon what we look at. ' We look not at the things which are 
seen.' It is only as we look at the Invisible and Spiritual, and come under 
its power, that we shall be what we ought to be in all holy living and 
godliness. 

4. Holy in Christ. Let this be our parting word. However strong tht 
branch becomes, however far away it reaches round the home, out of sight 



280 HOLY IN CHRIST. 



of the vine, all its beauty and all its fruitfulness ever depend upon that 
one point of contact where it grows out of the vine. So be it with us too. 
All the outer circumference of my life has its centre in the ego— the living, 
conscious I myself, in which my being roots. And this I is rooted in Christ. 
Down in the depths of my inner life, there is Christ holding, bearing, guiding, 
quickening me into holiness and fruitfulness. In Him I am, In Him I will 
abide. His will and commands will I keep ; His Love and Power will I trust. 
And I will daily seek to praise God that I am Holy in Christ 



KOTES. 281 



NOTES. 



NOTE A. 

Holiness as Proprietorship. 

In a little book — Holiness, as understood by the Writers 
of the Bible ; A Bible Study by Joseph Agar Beit — the 
thought that by Holiness is meant our relation to God, 
and the claim He has upon us, has been very carefully 
worked out. Holy ground was such because ' it stood in 
special relation to Himself.' The first-born ' were to stand 
in a special relation to God as His properly.' So with the 
entire nation ; when God declares that they shall be holy, 
He means ' that they shall render to Him the devotion 
He requires.' ' All holy objects stand in a special relation 
to God as His property.' The priests are said to sanctify 
themselves; they did this 'by formally placing them- 
selves at God's disposal, or by separating themselves 
from whatever was inconsistent with the service of God.' 
' When God declares He is holy, the word must represent 
the same idea in the hundreds of passages in which it is 
predicated of men and things.' c Holiness is God's claim 
to the ownership of men and things; and the objects 
claimed were called holy. ]STow, God's claim was a new 
and wondrous revelation of His nature. To Aaron God 
was now the Great Bein^ who had claimed from him a 
lifelong and exclusive service. This claim was a new 
era, not only in his everyday life, but in his conception 
of God. Consequently the word holy, which expressed 
Aaron's relation to God, was suitably used to express 



282 NOTES. 

God's relation to Aaron. In other words, to Aaron and 
Israel God was holy in the sense that He claimed the 
exclusive ownership of the entire nation. When men 
yielded to God the devotion He claimed, they were said 
to sanctify God.' * Jehovah and Israel stood in special 
relation to each other ; therefore Jehovah was the Holy 
One of Israel, and Israel was Holy to Jehovah. This 
mutual relation rested upon God's claim that Israel 
should specially be His ; and this claim implied that in 
a special manner He would belong to Israel. This claim 
was a manifestation of the nature of God.' * The peculiar 
relation arises from God's own claim, in consequence 
of which they stand in a new and solemn relation to Him. 
This may be called objective holiness. This is the most 
common sense of the word. In this sense God sanctified 
these objects for Himself. But since some of these 
objects were intelligent beings, and the others were in 
control of such, the word sanctify denotes these ones' 
formal surrender of themselves and their possessions to 
God. This may be called subjective holiness. From the 
word holy predicated of God, we learn that God's claim 
was not merely occasional, but an outflow of His Essence. 
As the one Being who claims unlimited and absolute 
ownership and supreme devotion, God is the Holy One.' 

In the New Testament the Spirit of God claims the 
epithet holy ' as being in a very special manner the source 
and influence of which God is the one and only aim.' 
Here 'our conception of the holiness of God increases 
with our increasing perception of the greatness of His 
claim upon us, and that this claim springs from the very 
essence of God. In the incarnate Son of God we see the 
full development and realization of the Biblical idea of 
holiness. We find Him standing in a special relation to 
God, and living a life of which the one and only aim is to 
advance the purposes of God.' We see in Him ' holiness 
in its highest degree, i.e. the highest conceivable devotion 
to God and to the advancement of His kingdom.' ' In 
virtue of His intelligent, hearty, continued appropriation 



NOTES. 283 

of the Father's purpose, and in virtue of its realization in 
all the details of the Saviour's life, He was called the 
Holy One of God.' 

' The word saint is very appropriate as a designation of 
the followers of Christ ; for it declares what God requires 
them to be. By calling His people saints, God declares 
His will that we live a life of which He is the one and 
only aim. This is the objective holiness of the Church of 
Christ. In some passages holiness is set before the people 
of God as a standard for their attainment. In these 
passages holy denotes a realization in man of God's 
purpose that he live a life of which God is the one and 
only aim. This is the subjective holiness of God's 
people. 

1 Holiness is God's claim that His creatures use all 
their powers and opportunities to work out His purposes. 
Holiness, thus understood, is an attribute of God. For 
His claim springs from His nature, even from that love 
which is the very essence of God. His love to us moves 
Him to claim our devotion ; for only by absolute devotion 
to Him can we attain our highest happiness.' 

' Though without purity we cannot be subjectively 
holy, yet holiness is much more than purity. Purity is 
a mere negative excellence ; holiness implies the most 
intense mental and bodily activity of which we are 
capable. For it is the employment of all our powers and 
opportunities to advance God's purposes.' 

The question ' How we become holy,' is answered thus : 
' Our devotion to God is a result of inward spiritual 
contact with Him who once lived a human life on earth, 
and now lives a glorified human life on the throne, simply 
and only to work out the Father's purposes. In love for 
Gsd because Christ does so, and because Christ lives in 
us, and we in Him : the Spirit of Christ is the Agent 
of the spiritual contact with Christ which imparts to us 
His life, and reproduces in us His life. He is the bearer 
of the power as well as of the holiness of Christ.' 

4 That God claims from His people unreserved devotion 



284 NOTES. 

to Himself, and that what He claims He works in all 
who believe it, by His own power operating through the 
inward presence of the Holy Spirit, placing ns in spiritual 
contact with Christ, is the great doctrine of sanctincation 
by faith.' 

The same view, that holiness is a relation, had previously 
been worked out very elaborately by Diestel. In what 
has been said on redemption and proprietorship as related 
to holiness (see c Sixth Day '), we have seen what truth 
there is in the thought. But holiness is something more. 
What is holy is not only God-devoted, but God-accepted, 
God-appropriated, God-possessed. God not only possesses 
the heart, but absolutely occupies and fills it with His 
life. 

It is this makes it holy. However much truth there 
be in the above exposition, it hardly meets our desire 
for an insight into what is one of the highest attributes 
of the very Being of God. When the seraphs worship 
Him as the Holy One, and in their Thrice Holy reflect 
something of the deepest mystery of Godhead, it surely 
means more than merely the expression of God's claim as 
Sovereign Proprietor of all. 

The mistake appears to originate in taking first the 
meaning of the word holy from earthly objects, and then 
from that deducing that holiness in God cannot mean 
more than it does when applied to men. The Scriptures 
point to the opposite way. When Old and New Testa- 
ments say, ' Be ye holy, for I am holy, I make holy/ they 
point to God's Holiness as the first, both the reason and 
the source of ours. We ought first to discover what 
holiness in God is. When we read at creation of God's 
sanctifying the Sabbath day, we have to do, not with a 
thought or word of Moses as to what God had done, but 
with a Divine revelation of a Power in God greater 
and more wonderful than creation, the Power which is 
later on revealed as the deepest mystery of the Divine 
Being. 

This Holiness in God, as it appears to me, cannot be a 



NOTES. 285 

mere relation. To indicate a relation, tells me nothing 
positively about the personal character or worth of the 
related parties. To say that when God sanctifies men 
He claims them as His own, does not say what the nature 
is of the work He does for them and in them, or what the 
Power by which He does it. And yet that word ought to 
reveal to me what it is that God bestows. To say that 
that claim has its root in His very nature, and in His 
love, and that holiness is therefore an attribute, makes it 
an attribute, not like love or wisdom, immanent in the 
Divine Being, ere creatures were, but simply an effect of 
Love, moving God to claim His' creatures as His special 
possession. We should then have no attribute expressive 
of God's moral perfection. Nor would the word holy of 
the Son and the Spirit any longer indicate that deep and 
mysterious communication of the very nature and life of 
God in which sanctifi cation has its glory. In the Divine 
holiness we have the highest and inconceivably glorious 
revelation of the very essence of the Divine Being ; in 
the holiness of the saints the deepest revelation of the 
change by which their inmost nature is renewed into the 
likeness of God. 



NOTE B. 

On the Word for Holiness. 

The proper meaning of the Hebrew word for holy, 
kadosh, is matter of uncertainty. It may come from a 
root signifying to shine. (So Gesenius, Oehler, Furst, 
and formerly Delitzsch, on Heb. ii. 11.) Or from another 
denoting new and bright (Diestel), or an Arabic form 
meaning to cut, to separate. (So Delitzsch now, on Ps. 
xxii. 4.) Whatever the root be, the chief idea appears to 
be not only separate or set apart, for which the Hebrew 
has entirely different words, but that by which a thing 



286 NOTES. 

that is separated from others for its worth is distinguished 
above them. It indicates not only separation as an act 
or fact, but the superiority or excellence in virtue of 
which, either as already possessed or sought after, the 
separation takes place. 

In his Lexicon of New Testament Greek, Cremer has an 
exhaustive article on the Greek hagios, pointing out how 
holiness is an entirely Biblical idea, and c how the scrip- 
tural conceptions of God's Holiness, notwithstanding the 
original affinity, is diametrically opposite to all the Greek 
notions ; and how, whereas these very views of holiness 
exclude from the gods all possibility of love, the scriptural 
conception of holiness unfolds itself only when in closest 
connection with Divine love/ It is a most suggestive 
thought that we owe both the word and the thought dis- 
tinctly to revelation. Every other attribute of God has 
some notion to correspond with it in the human mind : 
the thought of holiness is distinctly Divine. Is not this 
the reason that, though God has so distinctly in the New 
Testament called His people holy ones, the word holy has 
so little entered into the daily language and life of the 
Christian Church? 



NOTE C. 

The Holiness of God. 

There is not a word so exclusively scriptural, so distinctly 
Divine, as the word holy in its revelation and its meaning. 
As a consequence of this its Divine origin, it is a word 
of inexhaustible significance. There is not one of the 
attributes of God which theologians have found it so 
difficult to define, or concerning which they differ so much. 
A short survey of the various views that have been taken 
may teach us how little the idea of the Divine Holiness 
can be comprehended or exhausted by human definition, 



NOTES. 287 

and how it is only in the life of fellowship and adoration 
that the holiness which passes all understanding can, as 
a truth and a reality, be apprehended. 

1. The most external view, in which the ethical was 
very much lost sight of, is that in which holiness is iden- 
tified with God's separateness from the creation, and eleva- 
tion above it. Holiness was defined as the incomparable 
glory of God, His exclusive adorableness, His infinite 
majesty. Sufficient attention was not paid to the fact that 
though all these thoughts are closely connected with God's 
Holiness, they are but a formal definition of the results 
and surroundings of the Holiness, but do not lead us to 
the apprehension of that wherein its real essence consists. 

2. Another view, which also commences from the 
external, and makes that the basis of its interpretation, 
regards holiness simply as the expression of a relation. 
Because what was set apart for God's service was called 
holy, the idea of separation, of consecration, of ownership, 
is taken as the starting-point. And so, because we are 
said to be holy, as belonging to God, God is holy as 
claiming us and belonging to us too. Instead of regarding 
holiness as a positive reality in the Divine nature, from 
which our holiness is to be derived, our holiness is made 
the starting-point for expounding the Holiness of God. 
/God is holy as being, within the covenant, not only the 
Proprietor, but the Property of His people, their highest 
good and their only rule ' (Diestel). Of this view men- 
tion has already been made in the note to ' Sixth Day,' 
on Holiness as Proprietorship. 

3. Passing over to the views of those who regard holi- 
ness as being a moral attribute, the most common one is 
that of purity, freedom from sin. * Holiness is a general 
term for the moral excellence of God. There is none holy 
as the Lord : no other being absolutely pure and free from 
all limitations in His moral perfection. Holiness, on 
the one hand, implies entire freedom from moral evil \ 
and, upon the other, absolute moral perfection.' (Hodge v 
Syst. Theol.) The idea of holiness as the infinite purity 



288 NOTES. 

which is free from all sin, which hates and punishes it, is 
what in the popular conception is the most prominent 
idea. The negative stands more in the foreground than 
the positive. The view has its truth and its value from 
the fact that in our sinful state the first impression the 
Holiness of God must make is that of fear and dread in 
the consciousness of our sinfulness and unholiness. But it 
does not tell us wherein this moral excellence or perfec- 
tion of God really consists. 

4. It is an advance on this view when the attempt is 
made to define what this perfection of God is. A thing 
is perfect when it is in everything as it ought to be. It 
is easy thus to define perfection, but not so easy to define 
what the perfection of any special object is : this needs 
the knowledge of what its nature is. And we have to 
rest content with very general terms defining God's Holi- 
ness as the essential and absolute good. * Holiness is the 
free, deliberate, calm, and immutable affirmation of Him- 
self, who is goodness, or of goodness, which is Himself ' 
(Godet on John xvii. 11). 'Holiness is that attribute 
in virtue of which Jehovah makes Himself the absolute 
standard of Himself, of His being and revelation.' 

5. Closely allied to this is the view that holiness 
is not so much an attribute, but the ' whole complex 
of that which we are wont to look at and represent singly 
in the individual attributes of God.' So Bengel looked 
upon holiness as the Divine nature, in which all the 
attributes are contained. In the same spirit what Howe 
says of holiness as the Divine beauty, the result of the 
perfect harmony of all the attributes, * Holiness is intel- 
lectual beauty. Divine holiness is the most perfect beauty, 
and the measure of all other. The Divine Holiness is the 
most perfect pulchritude, the ineffable and immortal pul- 
chritude, that cannot be declared by words, or seen by eyes. 
This may therefore be called a transcendental attribute 
that, as it were, runs through the rest, and casts a glory 
upon every one. It is an attribute of attributes. These 
are fit predications, holy power, holy love. And so it is 



NOTES. 289 

the very lustre and glory of His other perfections. He is 
glorious in holiness.' (Howe in Wliyte's Shorter Catechism.) 
This was the aspect of the Divine Holiness on which 
Jonathan Edwards delighted to dwell. ' The mutual 
love of the Father and the Son makes the third, the per- 
sonal Holy Spirit, or the Holiness of God, which is His 
infinite beauty.' ' By the communication of God's Holi- 
ness the creature partakes of God's moral excellence, 
which is perfection, the beauty of the Divine nature.' 
* Holiness comprehends all the true moral excellence of 
intelligent beings. So the Holiness of God is the same 
with the moral excellency of the Divine nature, compre- 
hending all His perfections, His righteousness, faithful- 
ness, and goodness. There are two kinds of attributes in 
God, according to our way of conceiving Him : His moral 
attributes, which are summed up in His Holiness, and His 
natural, as strength, knowledge, etc., which constitute His 
greatness. Holy persons, in the exercise of holy affection, 
love God in the first place for the beauty of His Holiness.' 
' The holiness of an intelligent creature is that which 
gives beauty to all his natural perfections. And so it is 
in God : holiness is in a peculiar manner the beauty of 
the Divine being. Hence we often read of the beauty of 
holiness (Ps. xxix. 2, xcvi. 9, ex. 3). This renders all 
the other attributes glorious and lovely.' * Therefore, if 
the true loveliness of God's perfections arise from the 
loveliness of His Holiness, the true love of all His perfec- 
tions will arise from the love of His Holiness. And as 
the beauty of the Divine nature primarily consists in 
God's Holiness, so does the beauty of all Divine things.' 

6. In speaking of God's Holiness as denoting the essen- 
tial good, the absolute excellence of His nature, some press 
very strongly the ethical aspect. The good in God must 
not be from mere natural impulse only, flowing from the 
necessity of His nature, without being freely willed by 
Himself. ' What is naturally good is not the true realiza- 
tion of the good. The actual and living will, to be the 



290 NOTES. 

good He is, must also have its place in God, otherwise 
God would only be naturally ethical. Only in the will 
which consciously determines itself, is there the possibility 
given of the ethical. The ethical has such a power in 
God that He is the holy Power, who cannot and will not 
renounce Himself, who must be, and would be thought to 
be, the holy necessity of the goodness which is Himself, — 
to be the Holy. The love of God is essentially holy ; it 
desires and preserves the ethically necessary or holy, which 
God is.' (Dorner, System, vol. i.) 

7. It was felt in such views that there was not a suffi- 
cient acknowledgment of the truth that it is especially as 
the Holy One that God is called the Kedeemer, and that 
He does the work of love to make holy. This led to the 
view that holiness and love are, if not identical, at least 
correlated expressions. ' God is holy, exalted above all 
the praise of the creature in His incomparable praise- 
worthiness, on account of His free and loving condescen- 
sion to the creature, to manifest in it the glory of His 
love.' i God is holy, inasmuch as love in Him has 
restrained and conquered the righteous wrath (as Hosea 
says, xi. 9), and judgment is exercised only after every 
way of mercy has been tried. This holiness is disclosed 
in the New Testament name, as exalted as it is conde- 
scending, of father/ (Stier on John xvii.) 

8. The large measure of truth in this view is met by 
an expression in which the true aspects of the Holiness of 
God are combined. It is defined as being the harmony 
of self-preservation and self -communication. As the Holy 
One, God hates sin, and seeks to destroy it. As the 
Holy One, He makes the sinner holy, and then takes him 
up into His love. In maintaining His love He never for 
a moment loses His Divine purity and perfection in main- 
taining His righteousness. He still communicates Him- 
self to the fallen creature. Holiness is the Divine glory, 
of which love and righteousness are the two sides, and 
which in their work on earth they reveal. 



NOTES. 291 

* Holiness is the self-preservation of God, whereby He 
keeps Himself free from the world without Him, and 
remains consistent with Himself and faithful to His Being, 
and whereby He, with this view, creates a Divine world 
that lives for Himself alone in the organization of His 
Church/ (Lange.) 

'The Holiness of God is God's self-preservation, or 
keeping to Himself, in virtue of which He remains the 
same in all relationships which exist within His Deity, or 
into which He enters, never sacrifices what is Divine, or 
admits what is not Divine. But this is only one aspect. 
God's Holiness would not be holiness, but exclusiveness, 
if it did not provide for God's entering into manifold 
relations, and so revealing and communicating Himself. 
Holiness is therefore the union and interpretation of God's 
keeping to Himself and communicating Himself ; of His 
nearness and His distance ; of His exclusiveness and His 
self -revelation ; of separateness and fellowship.' 

4 The Divine Holiness is mainly seclusion from the im- 
purity and sinfulness of the creature, or, expressed posi- 
tively, the cleanness and purity of the Divine nature, 
which excludes all connection with the wicked. In 
harmony with this, the Divine Holiness, as an attribute 
of revelation, is not merely an abstract power, but is the 
Divine self -representation and self-testimony for the purpose 
of giving to the world the participation in the Divine life.' 
(Oehler, Theol. of 0. T. L 160.) 

6 Opposition to sin is the first impression which man 
receives of God's Holiness. Exclusion, election, cleansing, 
redemption— these are the four forms in which God's 
Holiness appears in the sphere of humanity ; and we may 
say tbat God's Holiness signifies His opposition to sin 
manifesting itself in atonement and redemption, or in 
judgment. Or as holiness, so far as it is embodied in 
law, must be the highest moral perfection, we may say, 
" holiness is the purity of God manifesting itself in atone' 
ment and redemption, and correspondingly in judgment." 
By this view all the above elemeats are done justice to j 



292 NOTES. 

holiness asserts itself in judging righteousness, and in 
electing, purifying, and redeeming love, and thus it 
appears as the impelling and formative principle of the 
revelation of redemption, without a knowledge of which 
an understanding of the revelation is impossible, and by 
the perception of which it is seen in its full, clear light. 
God is light : this is a full and exhaustive New Testament 
phrase for God's Holiness ' (1 John i. 5). (Cremer.) 

This view is brought out with special distinctness in 
the writings of J. T, Beck. ' It is God's Holiness which, 
taking the good which was given in creation in strict 
faithfulness to that good and perfect will of God, as the 
eternal life-purpose of love, in righteousness and mercy 
carried out to its completion in God Himself to a life of 
perfection. God does this as the Alone Holy. In the 
world of sin Divine love can only bring deliverance by a 
mediation in which it is reconciled to the Divine wrath 
within their common centre, the Holiness of God, in such a 
way that while wrath manifests its destroying reality, love 
shall prove its restoring power in the life it gives.' (Beck, 
Lehrwissenschaft, 168, 547.) 

6 Holiness is the sum and substance of the Divine life, 
as, in comparison with all that is created, it exists as a 
perfect life, but as it, at the same time, opens itself to 
the creature to take it up into a Godlike perfection — that 
is, to be holy as God is holy. Holiness is thus so far from 
being in opposition to the Divine love that it is its essen- 
tial feature or norm, and the actual contents of love. In 
holiness there is combined the Divine self-existence as a 
perfection of life, and the Divine self-exertion in the 
realizing a •Godlike perfection of life in the world. 
Holiness as an attribute of the Divine Being is His pure 
and inviolably self-contained personality in its absolute 
perfection. Hence it is that in holiness, as the absolute 
unity and purity of the Divine Being and working, all the 
attributes of Divine revelation centre. And so holiness, 
as expressive of the Being of God, qualifies the love as 
essentially Divine. 



NOTES. 293 

c Love is the groundform of the Divine will, but as such 
it receives its Divine filling and character from the Divine 
Holiness, as the Divine self-existence and self-exertion. 
As such the Divine will manifests itself in two modes — 
in its pure love as Goodness, in its holy harmony as 
Righteousness. These two do not exist separately, but 
permeate each other in reciprocal immanence, just as God 
in His Holiness is love, and in His love is holiness. In 
goodness the Divine love shows itself as the pleasure in 
well-being. But in this goodness the righteousness of 
God, to secure the well-doing, also acts.' (J. T. Beck, 
Glaubenslehre.) 

' God is holy, separate from all darkness and sin, but 
not in isolated majesty banishing the imperfect and the 
sinful from His presence : for God is light, God is love. 
It is the nature of light to communicate itself. Remain- 
ing pure and bright, undiminished and unsullied, it 
overcomes darkness and kindles light. The Holiness of 
God is likewise mentioned in Scripture, mostly in con- 
nection with love, communicating itself and drawing 
into itself. "I am holy " — but God does not remain 
alone, separate — " be ye also holy." ' (Saphir on Hebrews 
xii.) 

1 When we think of God as light and love, we realize 
most fully the idea of holiness, combining separate- 
ness and purity with communion' (Saphir, The Lord's 
Prayer, p. 128.) 

1 It is especially as the spirit of His Church, and as 
dwelling in the human heart, that God is the Holy One/ 

That in the Holiness of God we have the union of love 
and righteousness, has been perhaps put by no. one more 
clearly than Godet. In his Commentary on Romans iii. 
25, 26, he writes : — 

1 The necessity of the expiatory sacrifice arises from 
His whole Divine character ; in other words, from His 
Holiness, the principle at once of His love and righteous- 
ness, and not of His righteousness exclusively. ' 

* In this question we have to do not with God in His 



294 NOTES. 

essence, but with God in His relation to free man. Now 
the latter is not holy to begin with ; the nse which he 
makes of his liberty is not yet regulated by love. The 
attribute of righteousness, and the firm resolution to 
maintain the Divine holiness, must therefore appear as a 
necessary safeguard as soon as liberty comes on the stage, 
and with it the possibility of disorder ; and this attribute 
must remain in exercise as long as the educational period 
of the creature lasts — that is to say, until he has reached 
perfection in love. Then all these factors — right, law, 
justice — will return to their latent state. . . . 

' It is common to regard love as the fundamental feature 
of the Divine character ; in this way it is very difficult to 
reach the attribute of righteousness. Most thinkers, in- 
deed, do not reach it at all. This one fact should show 
the error in which they are entangled. Holy, holy, holy, 
say the creatures nearest to God, and not Good, good, good. 
Holiness, such is the essence of God ; and holiness is the 
absolute love of the good, the absolute horror of the evil. 
From this it is not difficult to deduce both love and right- 
eousness. Love is the goodwill of God toward all free 
beings who are destined to realize the good. Love goes 
out to the individuals, as holiness itself to the good which 
they ought to produce. Eighteousness, on the other hand, 
is the firm purpose of God to maintain the normal relations 
between all these creatures by His blessings and punish- 
ments. It is obvious that righteousness is included, no 
less than love itself, in the fundamental feature of the 
Divine character, holiness. It is no offence, therefore, by 
God to speak of His justice and His rights. It is, on the 
contrary, a glory to God, who knows that in preserving 
His place He is securing the good of others. For God, 
in maintaining His supreme dignity, preserves to His 
creatures their most precious treasure, a God worthy of 
their respect and love/ 

And in his Defence of the Christian Faith Godet writes, 
on ' The Perfect Holiness of Jesus Christ,' as follows : — 

'The supernatural in its highest form is not the 



NOTES. 295 

miraciLjus, it is holiness. In the miraculous we see 
Omnipotence breaking forth to act npon the material 
world in the interests of the moral order. But holiness 
is morality itself in its sublimest manifestation. What 
is goodness? It has recently been said, with a precision 
which leaves nothing to be desired, Goodness is not an 
entity — a thing. It is a law determining the relations 
between things, relations which have to be realized by 
free wills. Perfect good is therefore the realization, at 
once normal and free, of the right relations to one another 
of all beings ; each being occupying, by virtue of this 
relation, that place in the great whole, and playing that 
part in it, which befits it. 

' Now, just as in a human family there is one central 
relation on which all the rest depend, — that of the father 
to all the members of this little whole, — so is there in the 
universe one supreme position, which is the support of all 
the rest, and which, in the interest of all beings, must be 
above all others preserved intact — that of God. And 
just here, in the general sphere of good, is the special 
domain of holiness. Holiness in God Himself is His 
fixed determination to maintain intact the order which 
ought to reign among all beings that exist, and to bring 
them to realize that relation to each other which ought to 
bind them together in a great unity, and consequently to 
preserve, above all, intact and in its proper dignity, His 
own position relatively to free beings. The Holiness of 
God thus understood comprehends two things — the im- 
portation of all the wealth of His own Divine life to each 
free being who is willing to acknowledge His sovereignty, 
and who sincerely acquiesces in it \ and the withholding or 
the withdrawal of that perfect life from every being who 
either attacks or denies that sovereignty, and who seeks 
to shake off that bond of dependence by which he ought 
to be bound to God. Holiness in the creature is its own 
voluntary acquiescence in the supremacy of God. The 
man who, with all the powers of his nature, does homage 
to God as the Supreme, the absolute Being, the only One 



296 KOTES. 

who veritably is ; the man who, in His presence, volun- 
tarily prostrates himself in the sense of his own nothing- 
ness, and seeks to draw all his fellow-creatures into the 
same voluntary self-annihilation, in so doing puts on the 
character of holiness. This holiness comprehends in him, 
as it does in God, love and righteousness ; love by which 
he rejoices in recognising God, and all beings who surround 
God, as placed where they are by Him. He loves them 
and wills their existence, because he loves and wills the 
existence of God, and at the same time of all that God 
wills and loves ; and righteousness, by which he respects 
and, as much as in him lies, causes others to respect God, 
and the sphere assigned by God to each being. Such is 
holiness as it exists in God and in man : in God it is His 
own inflexible self-assertion ; in man it is his inflexible 
assertion of God. 

1 It is in Jesus that human nature sees how man can 
assert God and all that God asserts, not only humbly, but 
joyously and filially, with all the powers of his being, and 
even to the complete sacrifice of himself.' 

Careful reflection will show us that in each of the above 
views there is a measure of truth. It will convince us 
how the very difficulty of formulating to human thought 
the conception of the Divine Holiness proves that it is the 
highest expression for that ineffable and inconceivable 
glory of the Divine Being which constitutes Him the 
Infinite and Glorious God. Every attribute of God — ■ 
wisdom and power, righteousness and love — has its image 
in human nature, and was in the religion or the philo- 
sophy of the heathen connected with the idea of God. 
From ourselves, when we take away the idea of imperfec- 
tion, we can form some conception of what God is. But 
holiness is that which is characteristically Divine, the special 
contents of a Divine revelation. Let us learn to confess 
that however much we may seek, now from one, then from 
another side, to grasp the thought, the holiness of God ig 
something that transcends all thought, a glory to be known, 
not so much to be thought, as in adoration and fellowship. 



NOTES. 297 



Scripture speaks not so much of holiness, as the Holy 
One. It is as we worship and fear, obey and love \ it is 
in a life with God, that something of the mystery of His 
glory will be unfolded. As the Divine light shines in us 
and through us, will the Holy One be revealed. 



NOTE D. 

1 Our holiness does not consist in our changing and 
becoming better ourselves : it is rather He, He Himself, 
born and growing in us, in such a way as to fill our 
hearts, and to drive out our natural self, "our old man," 
which cannot itself improve, and whose destiny is only 
to perish. 

1 And how is this kind of incarnation effected, by which 
Christ Himself becomes our new self ? By a process of 
a free and moral nature, described by Jesus in words 
which surprise, because they place His sanctiflcation upon 
nearly the same footing as our own : "As the living 
Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father, so he that 
eateth me shall live by me." 

' Jesus derived the nourishment of His life from the 
Father who had sent Him : He lived by the Father. 
The meaning of that, doubtless, is, that every time He 
had to act or speak, He first effaced Himself ; then left it 
to the Father to think, to will, to act, to be everything 
in Him. Similarly, when we are called upon to do any 
act, or speak any word, we must first efface ourselves in 
presence of Jesus \ and after having suppressed in our- 
selves, by an act of the will, every wish, every thought, 
every act of our own self, we are to leave it to Jesus 
to manifest in us His will, His wisdom, His power. 
Then it is that we live by Him, as He lives by the 
Father. The process is identical in Jesus and in us. 
Only in Jesus it was carried on with God directly, 
because He was in immediate communion with Hirnj 



298 NOTES. 

whilst in our case the transaction is with Jesus, because 
it is with Him that the believer holds direct communi- 
cation, and through Him that we can find and possess 
the living Father. In that lies the secret, generally so 
little understood, of Christian sanctification.' (Godet, 
Biblical Studies, N. T. y p. 190.) 



NOTE E. 

Let me once more refer all students of holiness to 
Marshall on Sanctifi cation, and specially his third and 
fourth chapters. If they will compare him with our 
modern works— say, for instance, God's Way of Holiness, 
by so eminent an author as Dr. H. Bonar — they cannot 
but be struck by the prominence which Marshall gives to 
the one thought, that our holiness, a holy nature, is 
provided in Jesus, and that as faith accepts and maintains 
our union with Jesus in personal intercourse, sanctification 
is by faith. In other works, on the contrary, while the 
union to Jesus, and faith in Him, are but incidentally 
mentioned, and the chief stress is laid upon duties and 
the motives which urge to their performance, Marshall 
points out how motives never can supply the strength we 
need : it is the power of Christ's life in us, it is Christ 
Himself, as we by faith are rooted in Him, who works 
all our works in us. 

An abridgment of the work, for popular use, is pub- 
lished by Nisbet & Co, 



NOTE F. 

Note from Bengel on Eom. i. 4. 

1 According to the Spirit of Holiness. The word hagios, 
holy, when God is spoken of, not only denotes the blame* 



NOTES. 299 

less rectitude in action, but the very Godhead, or to 
speak more properly, the divinity, or excellence of the 
Divine nature. Hence hagiosune (the word here used) 
has a kind of middle sense between hagiotes, holiness, 
and hagiasmos, sanctification. Comp. Heb. xii. 10 
(hagiotes or holiness), v. 14 (hagiasmos or sanctification). 
So that there are, as it were, three degrees : sanctification, 
sanctity of life, holiness. Holiness is ascribed to the 
Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. And since here the 
Holy Spirit is not mentioned, but the spirit of holiness 
(prop, sanctity, hagiosune), we must further inquire what 
this remarkable expression denotes. The name spirit 
is expressly and very frequently given to the Holy Spirit ; 
but God is also called a spirit; and the Lord Jesus 
Christ is called a spirit, but in contrast to the latter. 
(2 Cor. in. 17.) With this we must compare the fact that, 
as in this passage, so often the antithesis of flesh and 
spirit is found where Christ is spoken of. (1 Tim. iii. 16 ; 
1 Pet. iii. 18.) In these passages the Spirit is applied to 
whatever belongs to Christ (apart from the flesh, although 
this was pure and holy, and above the flesh), through His 
generation of the Father, who sanctified Him : in short, 
His Godhead itself. For here, flesh and spirit, and 
chap. ix. 5, flesh and Godhead, stand in mutual contrast. 
This spirit is here called not the spirit of holiness, the 
usual title of the Holy Spirit; but it is called in this 
passage the spirit of sanctity, to suggest at once the effi- 
cacy of that holiness or divinity, which led of necessity 
to the Saviour's resurrection, and by which it was most 
forcibly illustrated, and also that spiritual and holy, or 
Divine power of Jesus who has been glorified and yet 
retained a spiritual body. Eef ore the resurrection the 
spirit was concealed under the flesh ; after the resurrection 
the spirit of sanctity concealed the flesh. In reference to 
the former, He was wont to call Himself the Son of man ; 
in reference to the latter, He is known as the Son of God.' 
Beck, in his Lehrwissenschaft, p. 604, puts it very 
clearly, thus — 



300 NOTES. 

* Inasmuch as the innocence and purity of Christ were 
not present in His sufferings and death as a quiescent 
attribute, but were in full action in the undestructible 
life-power of the Spirit, as He sanctified His own self 
to God for us ("through the eternal spirit," Heb. ix. 14 — 
therefore, in Eom. i. 4, hagiosicne, the habit of holiness 
in its action or sanctity, not hagiotes, only an innei 
attribute or hagiasmos, holiness in its formation) — His 
suffering effected an everlasting redemption.' 



NOTE G. 

1 Freed ' and ' Possessed ' — The Twofold Eesult of 
Kedemption. 

{From an address by Pastor Stockmans.) 

i Who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us 
from all iniquity, and purify unto Himself a people for 
His own possession, zealous of good works.' 

' In the redemption work of our Saviour Jesus Christ, 
there are two definite parts. You will never find the 
secret of abiding in Christ, so long as you cannot see 
these two definite distinct parts. The first is " Jesus for 
me," the other " I f or Jesus." Blessed be our Saviour that 
He came for sinners. He for us. Blessed be the Lord 
that there is redemption from penalty ; but that is not 
yet all that redemption means. You must have a clear 
apprehension of the second part of redemption,_ by that 
same Holy Ghost who is the guide to introduce us into 
the full possession of all that Christ, living and dying, has 
wrought out for us. He gave Himself that He might, 
redeem us from all iniquity — not that we might have the 
pleasure of being pleased with our own purity or holiness, 
or such things; but that He might have us altogether 
for Himself, to purify unto Himself for Him§elf t riot foi 



NOTES. 301 

Himself and themselves, but unto Himself, a people of Hia 
own possession. 

c What is now redemption 1 — freedom from self, even 
spiritual self. We are not to be our own centre, the 
centre of our joy, our progress, having in our poor weak 
hands the threads of our spiritual life. There is no real 
spiritual life but Christ's life, and He must have the care 
of it altogether from the beginning to the end. Lift up 
your eyes, dear brethren, you who were creeping on the 
ground. We are made for the glory of God, to be pos- 
sessed by Jesus. The Lord God found a way, in giving 
His Son, the Lamb of God, His Lamb, to get such selfish 
people, who even in the line of the Christian life found 
means to seek and to nourish self, to get such people into 
His own real practical possession, to be possessed by Jesus. 
That is redemption, and that only ; that is liberty, and 
that is reality ; that is what satisfies, not to be satisfied 
with any experiences of your own, but to let go your 
experiences, and to say, I am free, so free as the people 
of Israel were coming out of Egypt, free to serve God. 
" Let my people go, that they may serve me." You are 
free, free through the blood of Christ, free through the 
power of the Holy Ghost — no flesh, no hand, no self being 
able to keep you back. The Lord has stretched out His 
arms upon all the powers who had kept us in the bondage 
of Egypt, and He triumphed over them. You are free as 
the bird of the air to live in Jesus — that is freedom ; you 
are free in your daily life, free in the deepest, inmost 
depths of your being, free for Jesus, possessed by Him, a 
people of His own possession. Let my people go, said 
God. So, I have given my blood, said Jesus ; and no flesh, 
no sin, no self can claim against the blood of Jesus. He 
has redeemed unto Himself, not for us, a people of His 
own possession. . . . 

' You are inquiring about the secret of abiding in Jesus. 
Have you not seen this in the 15th of John, that abiding 
and bearing fruit are inseparable ? You cannot abide in 
Jesus for His joy, and your inward satisfaction. The 



302 NOTES. 

secret of abiding is to stand as a redeemed one, as firmly 
in the second part of redemption as the first. I am now 
living for Jesus, and I have only to ask, Lord, what wilt 
Thou have done now *? I am for Thee. I am for Jesus. 
I have only to follow, to follow as a sanctified one, as a 
possessed one, as one who is no more living for himself, 
who has given his life up into the hands of Jesus. Oh, 
how these questions of abiding become simple ! It is not 
mysticism ; it is not some special experience. It is 
simply a fact. I need Jesus for every moment, and my 
temptations as well as my duties become opportunities of 
realizing this life of fellowship with Christ. Oh, yes, 
this is redemption ! Oh, mighty power of God the 
Father, God the Son, God the Holy Ghost, engaged 
to keep such a weak, helpless, unfaithful thing as you and 
myself in the centre of life ! Sealed by the Holy Ghost, 
and God will never break His own seal.' 



THE END, 



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